website costing

[Chenks]

i created a website for a company some time ago (i won't mention them to spare their blushes)

it basically was a complete re-design of their old static html website to a new ASP drive site with the addition of a content management system to allow them to update the data on the website without having to manually edit the HTML every time (which they were doing previously)

the site has a fairly hefty database backend using ASP to generate and display the actual data on the site.

the work took approx 6 months from start to finish, as i was basically starting from scratch with them. creating graphics and producing extra content that they didn't have before.

at the time the company weren't that flush so we agreed that the design and coding ownership would stay with me, and the conent/data would belong to them.

they are now in a position where they want to take ownership of everything now.

question is, what should i charge them for this ?

[Danny Boy]

Do you have a rough estimate of the time spent on it? I know you said it took you 6 months, but I'm guessing that wasn't full time work or you would be charging quite a lot for the site! If you wan't to pm me a link to the site then I'll try and give you a guestimate on what I would charge for it.

[Chenks]

i was doing the work at nights when i got home from my real job.
probably about 3 - 4 hours, 5 days a week - that would be a realistic estimate.

the actual site layout is not much of an issue for me, but i believe the database is worth a bit.

[shifty.ricky]

£6000+VAT

Depends on the size of the business, what they are using the site for etc. A quote should always be given before the work is commenced.

For example I charge around £150+ VAT per day for anything I do IT related. Which at 4 hours a day means if you spend 80 days working on it would equal six grand.

Six - ten grand is also the amount charged to most medium size companies for a site.

[Chenks]

i don't think i would get away with charging £6k for it. but i can easily think that a professional company could charge something close to that.

[moebius]

Six - ten grand is also the amount charged to most medium size companies for a site.


what, would you say, is a medium sized company? 50+ employees?

[shifty.ricky]

Nah, more like 3,000.

It all depends on what those employees do...i.e. in logistics employee counts are artifically high as there are lots of shop floor guys in accounting artifically low as there are less people more qualified.

[Samsonite]

£6000 would be about right normally, but I think with this slightly relaxed arrangement and no agreed fee, you should probably ask for £2k-3k seeing as you did it in your spare time.

[Chenks]

shouldn't make any difference whether i did it in my spare time or whether i did it as a full time job. the costing should still be the same.

i've given them a price of £5500.

i know for a fact though that they can't afford anything like that, so fully expecting the current state of play to remain.

you see, they have a new marketing manager who obviously has big ideas that are well outwith the budget of the company.

[Samsonite]

I know you shouldn't have to charge less because it's in your spare time, but you don't want to make too much money moonlighting or the Inland Revenue will be on to you!

[Clarksy]

Another alternative is to license your technology (in this case code) to the client rather than accepting a one off payment for your work. This means you could charge them a lower annual fee for the site and you can apply terms and conditions to the license. (i.e. code cannot be redistributed without your permission and the client becomes responsible for any 3rd party changes made to any code)