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nurseferatu
Community Member

Wordpress development costs?

Hi, guys!

I do a lot of freelance work (Creating websites on Wordpress, usually from themes because that's what my clients like, graphic design, photo editing, etc.) and I've never really had a job opportunity like the one I'm hoping to have soon. I usually charge an hourly rate but this client is wanting me to give them a full estimate of what it would cost.

Here's what they want:

Time frame: Be done by the end of October

Will use a pre-made theme

  • Pages: 20-25

  • Contact forms: 1 three field contact form, 1 five field contact form

  • SEO

  • Full redo of their blog/news sections. Wants newest posts displayed on home page (not a big deal by any means)

  • Product pages with photo gallery on each page. Products will NOT be available for purchase on the site so no e-commerce is needed

  • Employment opportunities/Career portal.

  • Have an e-mail sent out after an applicant submits resume.

  • Keep all applicants in a database (which I'm assuming there is a plugin for. This is something I've never done before)

Site needs:

  • To be responsive

  • Slider for each page

I've looked at a lot of different cost calculators online and part of me is worried that I would be charging too much despite knowing that it's quite a few pages and not very much time to do it (considering I'm in school full time + I'm working on about 5 other websites at the moment).

If anyone has any ideas on how to price this it would be much appreciated. From what I've come up with it would be anywhere from 5-7K but...I think I'm worried because that seems like SUCH a high price but I also don't want to give them a small quote just to get their business only to end up regretting it.

6 REPLIES 6
prestonhunter
Community Member

It would be very, very unwise to agree to a fixed-price contract to do that much work.

 

You may agree to a fixed-price contact or milestone for a single small piece of the overall picture.

 

But you will regret it if you do a single contract for all of that.

 

This is a big and complex project. It should be an hourly project, or broken down into individual fixed-price contract of no more than a day or two of work.

Thank you for your reply, Preston!

 

I'm definitely planning on splitting it up into smaller milestones because that is a VERY large sum and that makes me a bit nervous.

Good.

 

Or even split it up into multiple single-milestone contracts.

 

When you split something like this up into small fragments, then you do a little work, you get paid.

You do a little more work, you get paid.

 

You need to sort of "test" the client early on to make sure there won't be a problem getting paid.

 

What you don't to have happen is that you do some work - an agreed-upon part - and the client doesn't pay immediately, but instead asks you to add things, change things, do this, do that, etc.

 

If a client does that, she is an hourly-contract-only client.

Preston has given you excellent advice but I’m going to be blunt here. You still have 92% Job Success despite a 1.8 star feedback, but if you leave another client disgruntled, your JSS will take a big hit. You also have other commitments you mentioned, and you’re uncertain about how to implement the job portal feature, at least in terms of saving applicants in a database. So whatever you do, don’t underestimate the risk involved. In the worst case, with a fixed price job, the client can keep requesting changes, or close the contract, request a refund and leave you poor feedback.
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"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce
nurseferatu
Community Member

Thank you both.

 

I quoted him a very reasonable price for the overall project, 6.5k (which I would have broken up into smaller milestones) and he said he wasn't willing to pay anything over $650. I really appreciate the feedback you guys gave me, though!


@Rikki P wrote:

Thank you both.

 

I quoted him a very reasonable price for the overall project, 6.5k (which I would have broken up into smaller milestones) and he said he wasn't willing to pay anything over $650. I really appreciate the feedback you guys gave me, though!


 You're welcome, and for what it's worth, $6.5k might have been on the high side but still reasonable, whereas $650 is ludicrous, so it's no great loss for you. 

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"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce