[thelist] pricing for web sites?

[Paul Bennett]

Hi all,

I choose to fixed price on an agreed set of deliverables. Clients love
it (no surprises) and so do the companies who use me as an on-call
developer resource (easy to budget for development resource when you
know the cost up-front).

My reality is that after a few projects I have a decent idea of what is
involved. There is inevitably some area of uncertainty so I research and
prepare as best I can, but am prepared to absorb some time overrun. I
don't want to pass on the uncertainty cost to the client as I feel I
should have a much better idea of technical uncertainty than the client
- that's why they hire us right?

One of the curses of our trade is that we're seen a little bit like
plumbers and lawyers - i.e. we want access to your open wallet and will
tell you "what it costs" when it's done. Consequently, trust for web
developers overall is generally pretty low due to the wildly fluctuating
pricing structure and quality of the end product we deliver.

In my experience, "I though I told you... moments can be avoided by
drafting up a set of requirements and agreed deliverables before you
begin and getting it signed off by both parties - any wise professional
will do that and those that don't will likely be burnt soon enough.
Discussions about extra features etc can be handled by "that's not in
scope for this phase, but I'm happy to discuss this once the project /
site / application is completed". 

Regards,
Paul  

www.mch.govt.nz  -  www.teara.govt.nz  -  www.nzhistory.net.nz  -  www.nzlive.com

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