Give me a price point

I'm working on a project and want to run something by the TFP hive mind:

I need to build a website to conduct a fairly simple retail transaction (a sliding-scale price based on user-input data). It would have to be able to:

• calculate a price based on the user's date (i.e. if they enter $1,000, the checkout price is $10)
• add applicable taxes (one or two percentages only, not a state-by-state rate)
• be secure
• generate a very specific receipt (I assume this is very simple so long as the wording is ready)

How much would this cost (not a TFP-friend price, a market price) and how long would it take? There might be work for someone here, but I can't promise it or even confirm that it will be built.
Any responses are greatly appreciated. Except spammers.

 

OK, from the top of my head ... on the higher up pricing scale ...

The following is annually ...
Security ... SSL Certificate from godaddy is $5.99
Hosting ... roughly ~$90.00
Domain ... ~$10.00

The website itself has it been designed or will you be doing that from scratch? From scratch a VERY GOOD website is at least $500.00 which will include the point of sale feature you would like implemented.

If all you want is just the back end ability to perform the tasks, then you can outsource that for ~$300.00 give or take.

This would take not more than a month to complete. I cannot give you a specific time frame without a detailed plan. Unless you would like the developer as well to come up with the plan ...

The whole thing total shouldn't cost you less than $300 or more than $600.

 

$600?

What the hell did I spend my money on?

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Not putting you down here Xerxes, but I cannot imagine a professional, VERY GOOD website made from scratch and intended for business purposes to be $600.

Unless I got bent over for my website.

Also, I don't know about you but my IT friend would literally try to punch my face for suggesting a GoDaddy anything.

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the_jazz I know two places in Germany for this stuff. Let me know when your project becomes a reality and I'll ask them. Cheers.

 

It really can be done for that much and honestly the_jazz didn't list very many features. the SSL cert was just an example you can get it anywhere else but godaddy isn't a bad place to start. The important part is the card transaction process and that is already taken care of by other third party merchant vendor services.

In a nutshell, almost everything is already done for you, you just have to pick the features you want and put them together.

 

So if I understand right, this is effectively off-the-shelf stuff that is pretty cheap?

If I want to pay someone to do it all for me, how much do you think to create a few web pages?

 

I just read this and realized you misunderstood me, I said at least ... as in not less than. Just the features alone shouldn't be expensive. By features I mean the back end coding to perform the tasks listed in the OP. The development part isn't hard. The reason costs begin incurring is labor charges.

You are correct.

You can have a quality website designed for cheap. It won't be exactly what you wanted as far as design goes (design is essentially the most expensive part of a website) but it will have the functions you asked for.


If you outsource the entire thing, the whole website it will run you a pretty penny. The reason I gave you a quote that would literally require a purchase from IKEA to assemble is because when building a website, many things come into play. You will see the end result then decide to alter it and alter it some more. Factors such as the design itself, (how the logo fits, fonts, non-/stock photo etc etc) back end functions, usability and integration, security all these will add up the more you alter the end result.

 

Xerxes, thanks. One last question - if I decide to have someone else do this and do it exactly to my specs, what are we talking? At this point, I've got a pretty high budget number in mind (based on some other conversations), and you haven't gotten anywhere close to it.

 

Mate, it's near impossible to overstate the importance of the website's design. Even when categorizing it as "labor charges".

While the latest project I have will make use of Shopify templates and the setup costs won't be more than $200-300, the design aspect of the brand and website will be by far the largest consideration.

The online presence is an integral part of a start-up's brand identity nowadays. To handle the design component as an optional extra is not the wisest thing to do.

Why You Should Hire Professional Web Designers | Vert Studios

Are you losing potential B2B sales every day?

 

I agree with remixer, skimping on a website is not a good idea. Any joe-smo can throw some shit at dreamweaver and get you a website. It takes a designer to make a website you feel proud in showing off. No offense, but those numbers are way off. Credit card transactions themselves are pricy and you could easily lock yourself in a contact with someone who will rob you blind.

Jazz, talk to amonkie's husband. He might have some local people who design websites and you need to shop around for quotes. With the way the market is setup, you could get someone out of state (or even country) to do the site for you, but I prefer to stay local.

I think you are thinking extreme high end for your budget and I think Xman is throwing you some extreme low end quotes. Take his number and your own number, then see what the middle is. I bet money that is where you will most likely end up.

 

Plonk me squarely in the Remixer/Lordeden camps. The old saying, "pay peanuts and get monkeys" isn't far off the mark. Coding a website is easy - making a nice looking one really isn't.

 

I think DamnitAll could quickly discuss the difference between "saving money" and "having a website that looks like a teenage girl's GeoCities."

Form is just as important (if not more) as function as far as websites are concerned. Unless you're a real design genius, pay someone else.

 

For the record, I'm going to pay someone to do this. We have to be careful about the credit card transactions for some very specific legal reasons, but what I'm still looking for is a rough idea of how much it is going to take to put pay someone to give me a finished product. Are we talking $5,000? $10,000? $20,000? I should also add that I'll probably need to go live in the next 60 days.

 

Depending on the level of work and difficulty to market, for a regular start-up I'd budget $10k for the complete website and for a business with serious potential I'd budget $30-50k to get a talented web designer and possibly throw an agency such as Mentally Friendly into the mix to do social media marketing and create a brand identity package. What is the scope of the marketing/promotion budget?

In all honesty, I think your budget will be sized by the amount you are willing to pour into it and the confidence you have that this project will take off. Almost any budget will get your job "done", which ranges between minimal Xerxes and to-the-max Remixer. If the overall budget is severely limited, at the very minimum I'd budget $2k for the creation of the website.

Only you can gauge the numbers in the BP's financial projections and the appeal of the product/service the business will provide.