Talk About Underbid
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:11 pm
Imagine doing the following in 25,000 lines of custom code from your own fingertips, and then dropping in PunBB, Google Site Search, Google Charts API, jQuery, TinyMCE, and PayPal components beyond that. Then imagine only charging $5K (USA price) for it. (BTW, my average site is about 25K - 30K in lines of custom code.)
Here's what they got:
Attractive design - Paypal integration - Sandbox product catalog mode - Product catalog - Multiple currency support - Article, guide, and blog publishing system - RSS feed on most recent stuff - Google Site Search - Poll gadget with Google Charts API - Security controls - SEO style links - Page compression - Google PR boosting tricks - Advertising section - Sweet admin system like no one has ever made before, full of AJAX and jQuery fancy stuff - PunBB forum integration with a rich editor control on posts - Most recent articles gadget - Most recent guides gadget - Paginated pages in admin and front-end - Most recent forum posts gadget - Login/Register/Logout + PMs from any non-forum page on the site - Admin editable secondary pages (FAQ, Policies, About Us, etc.) - Custom-built, mini-CMS with a TinyMCE rich editor control - Contact form with captcha and fancy AJAX/jQuery processing of required fields and required data in those fields - Bug fixes
I just did that and completed it in sixty 90 - 100 hour work weeks, juked up on Peruvian coffee. (I can't share the link because of NDA, however.)
The product catalog in itself should have cost $5K USD, but then adding in a fancy, custom-made mini-CMS -- that was another $5K right there. And then everything else in the site would have been $5K. So I should have charged like $15K USD.
So why so cheap? These reasons:
- April was a dry month. I guess taxes ate up my clients? So by May, I had to lower my rates. That's when my client found me. I raised my rates back to normal in June and bounced back, but it was with other clients.
- I was ready in May, but my client wasn't ready exactly. I couldn't wait on them, so I had to get work. That work turned into massive work, which belabored my ability to get back to this client. The client was flexible, surprisingly, and said they wanted to keep me even though I had to move them into backburner mode until my next free moment.
- I was really hoping to use a bunch of drop-in components and knock this out super fast. But on the forum system, I made the wrong choice and chose phpBB, which I grew to hate, and eventually had to switch to PunBB, which I like a great deal. Next, all CMS products wanted to be like the end-all for the whole site, not a gadget to drop into the site, which was pretty frustrating. So, I wrote my own. As for the product catalog, I didn't have the time to fight with F/OSS learning curves and products, and to live with their quirks, so I wrote my own and integrated it with PayPal's free shopping cart feature.
- There's cash and then there's cache. I wanted to have some of these custom components to use with this client on future projects, and to conceptually know how to build similar components for other clients. So, I chalked it up to reuse and experience.
- I can't complain much about a client that sticks with me in backburner mode while I work other more lucrative clients for a couple months. So we both got a deal, actually -- not just them.
The end result?
- The client is showering me with praise and recommending me to others. One new client even contacted me from that reference and wants me to fit them into my schedule.
- We've got reusable stuff here for future projects.
- Experience!
- The client will pay me a slight bit more on the next contract, and can trust me now.
- The components I built -- do you realize how many sites use most of those things? That's a lot of site varieties.
- I might not have to work so hard on my next project.
- Better time estimates on future projects.
Here's what they got:
Attractive design - Paypal integration - Sandbox product catalog mode - Product catalog - Multiple currency support - Article, guide, and blog publishing system - RSS feed on most recent stuff - Google Site Search - Poll gadget with Google Charts API - Security controls - SEO style links - Page compression - Google PR boosting tricks - Advertising section - Sweet admin system like no one has ever made before, full of AJAX and jQuery fancy stuff - PunBB forum integration with a rich editor control on posts - Most recent articles gadget - Most recent guides gadget - Paginated pages in admin and front-end - Most recent forum posts gadget - Login/Register/Logout + PMs from any non-forum page on the site - Admin editable secondary pages (FAQ, Policies, About Us, etc.) - Custom-built, mini-CMS with a TinyMCE rich editor control - Contact form with captcha and fancy AJAX/jQuery processing of required fields and required data in those fields - Bug fixes
I just did that and completed it in sixty 90 - 100 hour work weeks, juked up on Peruvian coffee. (I can't share the link because of NDA, however.)
The product catalog in itself should have cost $5K USD, but then adding in a fancy, custom-made mini-CMS -- that was another $5K right there. And then everything else in the site would have been $5K. So I should have charged like $15K USD.
So why so cheap? These reasons:
- April was a dry month. I guess taxes ate up my clients? So by May, I had to lower my rates. That's when my client found me. I raised my rates back to normal in June and bounced back, but it was with other clients.
- I was ready in May, but my client wasn't ready exactly. I couldn't wait on them, so I had to get work. That work turned into massive work, which belabored my ability to get back to this client. The client was flexible, surprisingly, and said they wanted to keep me even though I had to move them into backburner mode until my next free moment.
- I was really hoping to use a bunch of drop-in components and knock this out super fast. But on the forum system, I made the wrong choice and chose phpBB, which I grew to hate, and eventually had to switch to PunBB, which I like a great deal. Next, all CMS products wanted to be like the end-all for the whole site, not a gadget to drop into the site, which was pretty frustrating. So, I wrote my own. As for the product catalog, I didn't have the time to fight with F/OSS learning curves and products, and to live with their quirks, so I wrote my own and integrated it with PayPal's free shopping cart feature.
- There's cash and then there's cache. I wanted to have some of these custom components to use with this client on future projects, and to conceptually know how to build similar components for other clients. So, I chalked it up to reuse and experience.
- I can't complain much about a client that sticks with me in backburner mode while I work other more lucrative clients for a couple months. So we both got a deal, actually -- not just them.
The end result?
- The client is showering me with praise and recommending me to others. One new client even contacted me from that reference and wants me to fit them into my schedule.
- We've got reusable stuff here for future projects.
- Experience!
- The client will pay me a slight bit more on the next contract, and can trust me now.
- The components I built -- do you realize how many sites use most of those things? That's a lot of site varieties.
- I might not have to work so hard on my next project.
- Better time estimates on future projects.