[Tuxaloosa] Web design opinions requested

Fri Feb 12 18:42:44 UTC 2010

I've heard similar stories. there are companies out there that charge that
price because they know the customer is a(n) (technological) idiot who is
prepared to pay a fee that they know nothing about (their point of view...
not necessarily the truth).
$2500 these days should get you a *custom* CMS. Tailored to your specific
needs. Without all the bullshit that you don't need. Worked on for a solid
week by at least three self loathing, under paid code-monkeys who
telecommute from mom's shed (you know... the folks who really know what
they're doing).
Ok, that may be going a little far, but you get the idea: they, as you
already know, got taken by a company that knows they have little or no
recourse.

do you have a link to the site?

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Stewart Dean <studean at comicnet.net> wrote:

>  Thanks for the info!  Let me lay all my cards on the table:  My parents
> wanted a website for their Real Estate company.  At the time, I was swamped
> at the office, so they hired an advertising agency to create the website for
> them.  They defined the parameters and the company got to work (or so my
> parents assumed).  The contracted price was, I believe, $4,500 and they
> wanted half up front -- you know, for all the costs associated in setting up
> a website on somebody else's server and all...  7 months later, my parents
> got a reasonably basic Joomla install (and it's been a few years since I
> poked Joomla with a stick, so I'm not sure if there are any unorthodox
> extensions included) with a $37 template for their $2,250.  That's when I
> got involved...  Nothing about this site seems worth the 2K -- certainly not
> the time they put into it or the template that we almost had to force them
> to update (header was bigger than the content, making the website useless on
> a netbook).  They claim my parents didn't give them enough information to
> fill out the site, but it's a CMS.  Put the site up, show them how to
> update, and if they don't like it, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
>
> Now they feel that they have somehow earned the $2,250 for all the time
> they put into the website that took them away from other clients.  Think
> about that for a second -- they complained that my parents weren't giving
> them enough information to create the website.  Do they expect me to believe
> that they just kept working on it anyway?  Or maybe their programmer works
> out of the back of a cab with the meter running...
>
> I explained very politely that I happened to be gainfully employed as a web
> designer/programmer, and I know how much work he put into the website.  I
> even pointed out where he purchased the template (but it's just as likely
> that they didn't pay for it and just pulled the files from the demo site).
> I pointed out the flaw in the logic that said they did a lot of work even
> though they claim they had no way of knowing what work needed to be done.  I
> requested that they refund 2000 of the 2250 because 25/hour seems more than
> generous for the output.  They didn't secure the website* or spell check any
> of the pages.  They didn't even read the copy to make sure it made some sort
> of sense...  And this was an ADVERTISING AGENCY.  "The customer is always
> right" is crap.  The customer pays people to be right so they don't have to
> learn how to be right themselves.  If they wanted to be right, they wouldn't
> need somebody else to do the work for them.
>
> You'd think that an ad agency would have as their primary objective "make
> the client look good".  Not "make the client look like they failed
> kindergarten"...
>
> Stu.
>
> * Tinybrowser was the culprit.  Check any Joomla sites for
> "plugins/editors/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/tinybrowser/upload.php"
> and move or disable that stuff...  No login is required to use it, and you
> can upload arbitrary files and rename them for malicious intent.  It won't
> let you upload php files directly, but you can upload a file and use the
> "rename" feature to end up with something that will work.  If you
> successfully manage to rename a file to an invalid (by tinybrowser's terms)
> extension, instead of deleting the file, it just doesn't display it in the
> list.  I ended up installing dbkiss.php to manually add an admin account for
> myself...
>
>
> On 2/12/2010 11:40 AM, Erik Hanson wrote:
>
> take a look at what other joomla freelancers are charging and take it from
> there:
> http://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/by-job/Joomla.html
>
> I have done some Joomla work (I absolutely love joomla - but you already
> seem sold on it, so i wont gush) for a few places/people in town. I always
> feel bad charging some of the fees that I have seen on-line (one place
> wanted to charge $200 to apply a template (!?!)), and wind up going for a
> cheap hourly rate (these are friends/acquaintances we are talking about here
> - not just businesses that contacted my for my (cough) expertise). I enjoy
> the work; and, lets admit, Joomla's not a difficult bit of labor.
>
> that being said, this is what pricing has looked like to me in the past:
>
> setup (ftp to host, setup mysql, initial config): $100 - $200
>
> apply a template: $50 - $150 - this should include searching for the right
> template on site-ground/joomla.de/joomla-templates.com/etc, making sure
> it's what the customer wants, and tweaking accordingly. If i find myself
> having to spend more than two hours scrolling through a poorly structured
> (or in a foreign language) style sheet the price moves towards the high end.
>
> per page cost:
>     copy/paste - $3 - $10/page (should depend on how much work you have to
> do to make that copy/paste work. one time i had a person email me 10 docx
> files and tell me they wanted their site to look *exactly* like those
> documents... colors fonts and all. I felt that i had to include the many
> email communications in which i told them that this was, in fact, not what
> they wanted, in the per-page-price).
>      custom content - can you put a price on the creation of content that
> you cannot call it your own? some people think you can. I no longer make
> custom content because I've found that many people don't find my sense of
> humor appropriate. instead, if they have no content of their own, and still
> want a full-featured CMS, i use www.lipsum.com for filler (ok,ok - i use
> the filler initially even if they have their own content; so many people
> will look at an empty template and fall in love... until they see it filled
> with words).
>     graphics - have i spent more time in Photoshop than i have in Firefox?
> (++ graphics $$) Did i have to touch up every washed out image they gave me?
> (++ graphics $$) did i have to resize every 1220x900 @ 300dpi images they
> gave me? (++ graphics $$) did i have to round off the corners of the
> template they liked? (++ graphics $$). the only graphics i don't consider
> are when i replace that damned Joomla favicon.
>
> extensions/modules: back to the hourly guessing. how much work did you put
> in? I've installed Joomla extension that worked as advertised, right out of
> the box (so to speak). I have also installed extensions/mods that eventually
> had me editing more PHP than i care to look at in a month... Price goes up.
> Of course (and sometimes i feel like this makes me look a little
> unprofessional - but i do it anyway) I always give the customer the option
> of dropping said extension before i start pulling my hair out (and charging
> them accordingly) for something that they're not even sure they want.
>
> ... and then there's trade
> prices go all willy-nilly if cash is not involved. My wife has a $2000
> tattoo on her leg that was paid for with a ~$300 Joomla site (
> www.cynicaltattoos.net ).
>
> hope this helps some...
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Stewart Dean <studean at comicnet.net>wrote:
>
>> Probably a token hourly charge for support rather than a retainer...
>>  Though SEO might warrant a small retainer, if available.
>>
>>
>> On 2/12/2010 9:24 AM, Cameron Purvis wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like to know this also.  Are you going to have ongoing support in
>>> there, aka retainer or hourly revision charges?
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Stewart Dean<studean at comicnet.net>
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Are there any web designers for hire on this list?  I've never had to
>>>> charge
>>>> to build a website, so I'm wondering what's reasonable.  I'm looking at
>>>> a
>>>> 37-page Joomla! site, content to be provided and maintained by the
>>>> client,
>>>> but the designer may have to copy/paste it in place the first time.
>>>>  "Store-bought" templates are fine, but the template may have to be
>>>> altered
>>>> slightly if it doesn't meet client specification.
>>>>
>>>> What kind of price and time frame are we looking at here?
>>>>
>>>> Stu
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>>>>
>>>>
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