This following exchange demonstrates a few things and is interesting for people thinking about starting a major website project as it shows:
1, Hiring an offshore company that you have no relationship with that you found as they emailed you for a third of the ‘standard’ cost is normally a false economy
2, You should be realistic about cost expectations for website building and to think that investing £1500 on a database driven dynamic website that you hope to work perfectly, look lovely and to bring in lots of visitors and business on an International level is pure fantasy.
Please take a look at this sample conversation and hopefully realise that if you pay cheaply you end up costing yourself more than money in the end.
[Website Owner] I am sending you a graphic Image of my website. We can discuss about the features which i want later in detail so you can make me a fair and sincere offer. I can also give you then all the details about the programming which already is done. I am looking forwards for your contact to discuss all this with you soon and hopefully we can create a good business relationship.
[Website Design Company] Ok will review the email once I have finished meeting with another client
[Website Owner] Please let me know when you have time to discuss with me? I do have specifications about my project, the project requirement document But that document need to be up dated because there r some features which may not required and new need to add
[Website Design Company] Ok happy that you can change the requirements and sent it when ready
[Website Owner] Ok I will change it today and send you, but I wish that we can discuss on that soon after you get that and give me your feedback which features are required and which may we don’t need. So we can have clean and clear specifications. I will send the document per email by tonight and tomorrow we can discuss fully. Thanks for your understanding
[Website Design Company] Ok great will review when time permits
[Website Owner] I have 4 different documents which r speaking somehow on my jobs portal. We need to refine them together
[Website Design Company] Yes ok, to start with I think you can review them and send them to us to have an initial review / read
[Website Owner] Yes that I am thinking, there are some features which we may not need and there can be added some new features, you can advise me then which you think are useful or which not, after your review we can make a final document about the system. Ok I am going to share that with you now through Skype, so now you have the documents.
[Website Design Company] We have briefly reviewed the documents
[Website Owner] Great, what do you think?
[Website Design Company] Am I correct in thinking that they are all from different companies that have been given the task of creating a proposal as there are obvious subtle differences. Also what is your time constraints and budget for this project to ensure we are on the same page?
[Website Owner] Yes, you are right
[Website Design Company] The website project specifications represent quite a lot of work but if we go forward I will create a unique one that covers exactly what you want / need and no more
[Website Owner] In the beginning I was thinking to launch the site till end of September, It was not working as I wished. Now I will say till end of year we have to launch it. That is my wish………don’t want just lot of useless stuff on website
[Website Design Company] We need to clean it up first because I think these documents are just mixing lot of things up and confusing. To the bottom line – what is your budget range – general range is fine, and be assured we can deliver this to you by year end
[Website Owner] Cool, I would ask you for your offer first, I can also tell you what I am paying to other one, I don’t have specific budget for that, design layout you will get from my designer,
[Website Design Company] We can’t spend hours and hours on the proposal to simply hear you say ‘sorry that’s not in my budget range’ we had a client even yesterday that we had spent hours with for him to only take all our documentation and proposal and say ‘he didn’t expect the website to cost so much’.
[Website Owner] And some work which other company has done I will ask them for the codes so we can adjust that as well
[Website Design Company] Website cost expectations are a hard subject but you need to realise this is a big project with hundreds of hours work to be put into it to give you a working / leading website
[Website Owner] Can you please give me an idea about the price with some plus and minus so I can tell you if I can pay in that range?
[Website Design Company] No I asked first and it’s common to ask for the client’s budget expectations. I know within a range what it costs so if your budget falls within our range then that’s good
[Website Owner] I am paying for this web development to other company 2500 us$ and design is on my part, I have paid some deposit, which I don’t think I will get that back but hopefully I can get some codes which we can use……..
[Website Design Company] Ok so now you need to show us all the coding / graphic designs (if there are more than the ones you have send) to allow us to work out if we can re-use coding already done
[Website Owner] Sure, I will show you that as soon as we come to the deal, graphic I have shown you yesterday, rest of the designs will follow soon after, you can tell me which format you need that my designer will provide u
[Website Design Company] Adobe Photoshop format is standard
[Website Owner] They are pad files which I sent you yesterday; would you like to have them again?
[Website Design Company] Yes ok so we have the designs that are great, do you have more or just the three pages?
[Website Owner] In the beginning only these 3 pages but you will get complete design,
[Website Design Company] None of the guides feature ‘guide websites’ or websites that do what you want – have you got any example other company websites?
[Website Owner] All icons and other pages blog etc, there r so many webs. But I would like that we may not follow the others just create our own
[Website Design Company] Ok but an ‘example’ one you have? What features do no NOT want? Based on the proposals – examples are ‘online chat’ functions, also what is your relationship with the webcopy girl that introduced us – does she do marketing / webcopy work for you?
[Website Owner] Yes she is doing webcopy and later she will do the marketing, also linkedin.com has some feature which I like to integrate
[Website Design Company] Ok will now go back and discuss this with our team but need details of what you have in terms of ‘code’ to give a real accurate quote – will assume we will not re-use anything at the moment
[Website Owner] Ok, got your point
[Website Design Company] I can tell you 100% that our quote will be much more than $2500, our business brochure websites cost that much
[Website Owner] Ok I will not say if it’s really much more then I will work with u, but if there is little difference I will not mind to pay you more. Please also keep in mind I am going to lose my deposit as well
[Website Design Company] No there is going to be a big difference The initial price range will be between $6000 – $8000 before we see what coding you have – do you want me to talk to my team?
[Website Owner] No that is really a big difference…….and also I don’t think before defining our features we able to decide about price, as you see the design, logo, icons, slides images you will get from me on your part is just programming and development. I do have domains as well if your price stay in-between 2500-3500 us$ then we can move further?
[Website Design Company] ‘Just’ programming and development is 80% of the work. How would you pay? Assume you are in good financial standing with Louisa
[Website Owner] Yes that’s right, we don’t have problem with payments, and I can pay us 30% in advance then rest in 2 instalments timeframe we can decide
[Website Design Company] Again we are not on the same page – we need 50% deposit to start work I am afraid
[Website Owner] Yes that is not an issue
[Website Design Company] Will go away now and consider this further but your budget is not very realistic to us at the moment unless my team think otherwise
[Website Owner] You can think on that and if your team is agreed for that we can discuss and define the features
[Website Design Company] Also do you mind me asking Louisa if you are a good client / and that you pay on time? We have lots of problems with clients not paying
[Website Owner] You can ask her but we don’t have yet deal with the payments, just very small invoice she just sent me which I am going to pay her tomorrow
[Website Design Company] Ok thanks that’s good to know
[Website Owner] So have you discussed with your team?
[Website Design Company] No not yet – we have 15 projects on-going so pretty busy
[Website Owner] You should know that I haven’t stopped the other company
[Website Design Company] Ok are they developing the website on their own servers or on your website / server?
[Website Owner] Yes they are developing on their server
[Website Design Company] Why not on your own website? 99% of the time that’s what we do
[Website Owner] Because I don’t want just uncompleted web online. Also I don’t have server yet
[Website Design Company] 99% of our clients use our hosting / servers – award winning ones. We have new uncompleted sites online and being developed and these are not seen by anyone and not indexed in Google.
[Website Owner] But I haven’t yet decided about hosting and server etc that’s why it’s better if we come to deal as early as possible to stop the other one and start with you but honestly now they start working very fast on the project
[Website Design Company] How do you know? Do they give you a link to their work?
[Website Owner] They sent today link about design html, they are implementing the changes to the website now
[Website Design Company] Ok let me look at the link
[Website Owner] Ok, they also sent some login details to control about programming Because they are changing the font and some colour. After that I will send you the link
[Website Design Company] HI we have concluded that regardless of the changes happening with your current development, my main team leader has just spoke to me about your project and we both agree that your project will take 12 weeks and our price for it will be £7250 with a deposit of $3500 required to start work and we can start within 3 days of the project being agreed and deposit being paid
[Website Owner] I will say that is huge difference in price, as i have seen the other company is now start working more efficiently
[Website Design Company] ok then good luck with them – hope it works out for you – if you have the link I would be happy to have a look at their work for you
[Website Owner] I will prefer to stay with them, they informed me 50% of work is already done, here is the in progress home page link, programming will show u other time because i am waiting for some more links
[Website Design Company] looks ok so far but there is only html here – looks about 1 days work
[Website Owner] Yes, you are right, programming links i have in other folder they said when they will give ok i can test that as well, what do u think about html? quality wise?
[Website Design Company] Very average and I now think this is less than 1 days work, html is incomplete but has errors
[Website Owner] I know because i have given them design last week, can you please point out the website errors?
[Website Design Company] Its unfair to comment further on someone else’s incomplete work but their code is not w3c compliant
[Website Owner] Thanks, for your fair answer, but you can see how big the price difference is, sure quality cannot be on that level expected, as soon as i will have complete template i wud let my designer to test……and at the end i can ask them for the changes, do u think this is a right way or?
[Website Design Company] Perhaps do you have any other back-end access yet?
[Website Owner] Yes but i haven’t seen yet
[Website Design Company] Thought you said yesterday they had sent dome login details about programming !?
[Website Owner] I am now thinking I have wasted my money as this Indian website design company have told me that they have almost completed my design but nothing works and there are so many things not how we need them to look and work. HELP !!!!