estimating bid on a couple projects

Anon

i'm trying to pick up some web contract work and have only a couple personal sites in my portfolio. people often ask, "what would it cost to do that?"

i was wondering what people would estimate (in $$$) for these two builds:
http://www.uac.pdx.edu/ - open source php site. mysql database for links page; online, public editing of routes pages; get and pull of local weather.

http://www.portlandalano.org/ - HierMenus; simple javascript footer; strong css; copy of all images.

i have a hard time estimating the time it even took to make them because i was learning but to redo it, maybe 40 hours on PortlandAlano.org and 100 on the uac.pdx.edu site? twenty an hour as a cheap contractor.... $800 & $2000 -NO WAY?!?

maybe $3500 & $5000?

am i in left field here?

thanks in advance for an advice.

--nm

[deleted]

Hard to tell without a peek at your CV.

But I don't think that for a relative newbie (well you said you were learning) an hourly rate of $3500/40=$87.5 an hour is justified. do you? (don't tell me you make that kind of money in your regular job) 🙂

toma42

Take your estimated hours and multiply by 1.4 for a good, possibly more accurate, figure.

Personlly, I never take less than $50/hour for contract projects and usually get $70/hour.

Anon

no man, that's the point. $20 an hour seems reasonable for a beginner - i can sell that point - but i don't want to underbid my efforts. time it takes is what i have a hard time figuing.

i also need to know what would be a competitive professional bid for either project.

(what's a regular job :?)

toma42

Open your copy of Code Complete to page 536 (you are a developer so you have a copy, right?). There are 9 pages there discussing schedule estimation. Inluded are 4 references for further reading and 4 crossreferences to other sections in the book.

Tom

Anon

not that I do this taht often, but when I do work for other people, I always have to conisder WHO I am working for (i.e. non-profit, corporate, personal, etc.) and What, if any, I would have to learn in order to do the job correctly (i.e. maybe now I'll have to figure out classes, or something). Something to consider.

Anon

this all helps but i would still wonder of estimates to build these two sites:

htttp://www.portlandalano.org/
http://www.uac.pdx.edu/

thank you

-nm

[deleted]

It's allmost impossible to tell because from the looks of it both sites are dead-simple to make, but they may have 'hidden features' that are not visible for use 'visitors'.

To give a proper estimate we'd need more info about what the site can do. As you said yourself, the hours you actually spent doing it are no real indication because you were learning, and some people work faster than others.

Anon

the schedules at portlandalano.org are mysql driven; "sobriety calculator with javascript; soon css served platform specific.

uac.pdx.edu is open source (link at bottom of pages) but, cookies with php, site tracking with perl, user contributed photos, mysql links, "routes" page editing with perl, routes creation with php. sunrise/ sunset with php. weather with hamweather.com perl scripts and php get/pull.

good point. really do appreciate the straight up comments.

Anon

My company would probably quote:

$650 US for portlandalano.org $65/hour as only 1 developer would be needed - quote doesn't include images/hosting/domain

$910 US for uac.pdx.edu ($130/hour) as we'd use 2 developers - again quote doesn't include images/hosting/domain.

These are not complicated sites to build, the most expensive part of each quote would be the images. We pay our artists $60/hour and they'd spend about 10-20 hours working on a few sample designs based on the client's specs. They'd then spend another 5-10 hours on the final design. We charge the clients $800-$1200US for the samples (flat fee) and a further $1600-$2000 for the final design.

We pay our developers $45/hour and total coding time for the sites would likely be 10 and 15 hours respectivly - the 2nd site having 2 developers working aprox 7.5hours each.

Hope This Helps, sorry about being offtopic ;o)

sid666

do your customers already come to you with their finished concepts?

to my experience the most difficult part is to find out what the customer actually wants to have... goe do you handle and charge that???

sid

Anon

that help alot, really appreciate the info.

-nm