Website Cost

[BillR]

I have three website cost questions for some new projects I am undertaking. I am uncertain what to budget for cost for the following.

Assume I'm not looking to get this done cheap - I'm looking to get it done right. And I'm just looking for ballpark figures.

1.) E-commerce site that sells 1 product (a book I am writing)

2.) E-commercie site that sells multiple products (dozens of products or more)

3.) Static corporate website with contact info, services offered, etc. No interactive anything. Presumably I'd want professional copy for this.

So given that - what would you think I should expect to pay for each? Also, there is no relation between any of these three.

[cbscreative]

I can only provide very generalized numbers which could be significantly affected by several factors, but I will ball park these on primary costs for having the sites created. Also, different designers have different pricing structures, but that's no secret.

1) $1000 but a little known author has the challenge of building trust, so just putting up a site and hoping it will sell may not work very well. I would discuss several other concerns before just building such a site.

2) A good budget should be at least $5k to $10k for a project like this. Professional photography, product descriptions, and many other factors can have a significant impact on cost. Not knowing what these products are means I am estimating blind here. For example, fine jewelry would be more time consuming than automotive parts, so the costs to build the sites would be very different. Even the competitiveness of the market will have an effect. Doing a site that does not stand out in a competitive market would almost surely lead to failure.

3) $2k to $5k. That's a significant range, but again, many different factors influence what should be done to make the site successful. There are even situations where $1k or less will meet the need, so I'm reluctant to list prices.

Basically, and I've made this point before, there are a couple primary ways to price web design. There are those who sell it by the pound, one size fits all, production line commodity. Some people want to buy it that way, so I'm fine with that. I approach web design from the perspective that every situation is different, everyone's needs are unique, and their site should be done to fill those needs. Therefore, I price according to what is needed rather than providing a menu.

That's my disclaimer with all prices listed above anyway.

[BillR]

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed.

I am well versed in writing project requirements for putting things out to bid so when it gets to that point I'm fairly confident the people who bid will have a fair shake at getting the estimate close.

Also - in regards to publishing a book - I agree on all counts. However, if it's a specialized cookbook with little competition (which is hard to believe but seems to be true) then I think there's potential to do well with it. And by "do well" I mean sustain a profitable income long term. This would be for my wife to do as a stay home mom so even if she made a few hundred $$ a month it would be worth it. It's not meant to be anything beyond additional income .

Granted, even that will take the appropriate SEO optimization and marketing.

[orion_joel]

Bill, while i would guess you may already know this i think it may be worth adding to the thread.

I guess the biggest variation in costs will come with how customized the solution is. For all the projects you mention they could be done either with a open source script and modified, or using completly custom programming, while one option may cost a lot more then the other you also need to weigh up the actual difference in value that one option over the other provides. For example spending thousands to get a complete custom solution may not provide a similar scale up in sales. Like project 2 you could use an open source shopping cart and customize to your needs for say $2000 or get something completly customer for $10,000, however is this going to provide you with 5 times the sales.

[vangogh]

Bill my answer to all three is "it depends" Not a very specific answer I know, but I can think of inexpensive solutions to all three and I can think of expensive solutions to all three.

The ballpark numbers Steve gave all seem good, but I would also point out Joel's comment:

the biggest variation in costs will come with how customized the solution is

For example each of your three sites could easily make use of one or another open source solutions. You could buy a theme for one, or hire someone to customize a theme for you and probably have more money left over for the marketing and content creation, if you need either.

The most expensive parts of a site will be the custom design, which I do recommend and the custom programming which may or may not be necessary in your case. A one product site you can connect to a PayPal button to take money if you want and the rest of the site becomes a static site for the most part.

Dozens of products aren't a lot either and any of several CMSs could easily handle this without custom programming.

I'd sooner look for the design and go for the CMS solution. You probably don't need a custom shopping cart. Put more of the money into the design, content creation, and the marketing.