Charging for a website.

Llistentomystory on 24/08/2019 - 12:59

I was approached by a potential customer to build a website for him. He was asking for labour and cosultation price and i have no clue how much should i charge him.

The website will be a video streaming kind of website where videos will be hosted on either DailyMotion or Youtube, which means it will involve a lot of APIs and JS.

The client is still trying to get a loan to start the business, so he was looking for something cost effective that doesnt cost as much.

My current position is to maintain a company e-commerce websites and do not have much experience building such rich feature website from the scratch, and do not know how to properly charge the customer.

I'm thinking of charging him $70k (labour and consultation only) to deliver a functional website as per his business requirements. Am i overcharging or undercharging What are you thoughts?

Computing

Comments

  • LukeB on 24/08/2019 - 13:10
    +5

    $70k for something delivered by a single person? Hah, well, if you can get away with that…

    A wordpress site with a couple plugins and theme work would cost a few thousand in dev time/costs at most. Whether or not that would work to scale here would be based on his requirements and projected traffic I haven't seen.

    The fact he is lowballing your work already and has no capital to pay you would get me worried you'll spend commit many hours of your life on this and may never see a dime. I'd get a deposit at the very least.

    • listentomystory on 24/08/2019 - 14:32

      I would look for some help, most likely a team of 4. His business model is interesting and unique and do not see many people/business like this in Australia. He asked to host the server locally until the traffic gets bigger (he already bought a blade server for this), then move to cloud. Traffic will be really low once it's deployed, and will increase depending on how he markets his business.

      I would ask for deposit of course, monthly payment and last payment of 20-30% with the total of 70k.

      Do you think $70k is too much?

      • elgrande on 24/08/2019 - 14:46
        +8

        Yes.

  • qwerty on 24/08/2019 - 13:18
    +1

    Are you a graphics designer or getting one ?

    • listentomystory on 24/08/2019 - 14:34
      -5

      No, I am not. I have told him that he need to look for one on his own.

  • jackinyourbox on 24/08/2019 - 13:48
    +2

    Largely on quality and end result. School kids can charge $500

    • listentomystory on 24/08/2019 - 14:45
      -4

      I justify $70k with consultation, server management, etc. We will sit and define all his requirements and make agreement/contract.

      This will not be a simple website and he will need some enhancement in the future including mobile app. How much would you pay if you were the client?

      • afoveht on 24/08/2019 - 22:31
        +5

        How much would you pay if you were the client?

        I'd expect a breakdown of costs or other justification, not just a number plucked from the air.

  • ssquid on 24/08/2019 - 14:01
    +3

    Sounds suspiciously like you are planning to violate the TOS of those streaming sites by directly accessing their video feeds instead of using their player components…

    • listentomystory on 24/08/2019 - 14:53

      Thanks for the input. TOS didn't cross my mind at all in the discussion with the client. I will have to check and inform the client. Any alternative suggestions where we do not have to host the video ourselves? A friend told me I should use Cloudflare Video.

      • nith265 on 26/08/2019 - 11:19

        Cloudflare Video looks great and I love their suite of CDN and DDoS services. If you’re asking on a bargain site for advice on the core component for a $70k + project I’m glad I’m not the client!

        Just itemise everything, put 1,2 skip a few figures next to them, add it all up and tweak until you’re happy with the final figure. At least then you'll have something resembling a contract and what is/isnt in scope

        For all we know about the scope (something involving video that might not be directly hosted on your platform anyway…) you could be selling yourself short with $70k

      • Quagles on 26/08/2019 - 13:59
        +1

        TOS didnt cross your mind but you feel qualified to charge 70k? wow

  • Kail on 24/08/2019 - 16:59
    +1

    A quick search of Australian prices:

    $2-12k for a small business website
    https://www.pixelrush.com.au/blog/how-much-does-a-website-co…

    $3-15k for a small business site
    https://www.webalive.com.au/website-cost/

    $500-$2k for a cheap design
    $5-20k for a professional agency including design, code, content writing, graphics and seo ($1.5k – 5k if you're only doing the code)
    https://thewebwarriors.com.au/web-design/web-design-cost-aus…

    Unsure why your figure is so far off what professional agencies charge, can you provide more information about the size and complexity of this website?

  • Changskies on 24/08/2019 - 17:47
    +4

    If you charged me 70k to build a functioning site with coding only I would have laughed my head off and walked away. However, if you built a website with graphics, legal on data, 3rd party plug ins, and management I would legit pay you right away. Are you a person with enough industry contact to liaise and provide aforementioned services?

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