How much would this web project cost?/how should I do it?

Conrad11 · 11 Aug 2011 at 11:02

I am purely interested, I'm doing it for free for a mate, but just wanted to know how much other people would charge/how much he would expect to pay going to a reputable company.

The website is simply, just a themed wordpress with a fancy gallery. Maybe 6 pages in total, including a logo design.

He also wants the ability to stream a video from an internet connected computer to the website for clients to view on a password protected page.

What would he be charged for this?

Right, I was thinking for the stream, as he is going to be on a mobile dongle for the server to simply just upload a picture via ftp every x seconds...would this work ok...or is there another way I should do it?

8t10 · 11 Aug 2011 at 12:06

A decent agency would be £700 - 1000+, but they wouldn't take on work that small usually unless they are small. Good freelancers would be anywhere from £350 to £800 depending on spec.

Other end of the scale, some companies will offer it for £200 - £395 inc VAT but it will be churned out and not necessarily unique - which may be what the client wants.

Conrad11 · 11 Aug 2011 at 12:24

The prices you guessed - would that include the streaming functionality - I would have thought that would charge a premium over those prices?

The only reason I say that is because surely you are creating a bespoke application as well as a website?

RoyMi6 · 11 Aug 2011 at 14:07

There's not actually much too the live stream thing.

Cameras can be found for £60 that you just connect to a network and you get a password protected steam that can be viewed online. Hell, my dad's one even lets him pan and tilt the camera.

If I was doing it for someone I'd probably charge about £300.

The website part again is pretty straight forward. You're looking at the most basic of packages which my guys charge £500 for.

Conrad11 · 11 Aug 2011 at 15:21

RoyMi6 said:
There's not actually much too the live stream thing.

Cameras can be found for £60 that you just connect to a network and you get a password protected steam that can be viewed online. Hell, my dad's one even lets him pan and tilt the camera.

That seems far easier, the problem is quality, what will the quality be like, it would be pointed at a computer screen and the image would need to be readable (quite large fontsize).

Also - how would you stream that over the internet via a Mobile Internet dongle? What happens if the mobile dongle looses connection...what about the speed of the mobile dongle...etc...etc...

Would it work properly is what I am asking? Can I stream over SSL?

See all these things together I was thinking that you would end up having to create some bespoke software to stream rather than using existing technology, which I thought would drive the cost up a lot.

UK-AL05 · 11 Aug 2011 at 17:27

Depends, Most companies that would not get out of bed for anything less than 5K

Conrad11 · 11 Aug 2011 at 17:33

UK-AL05 said:
Depends, Most companies that would not get out for anything less than 5K

"Get out"? Sorry, not sure what this means.

edwardcasbon1 · 11 Aug 2011 at 17:40

Conrad11 said:
"Get out"? Sorry, not sure what this means.

He means 'get out of bed', it's a common phrase. Essentially, most agencies have to cover their costs and will not work on projects that are less than, in my experience, £6,000-£8,000.

Conrad11 · 11 Aug 2011 at 18:23

edwardcasbon1 said:
He means 'get out of bed', it's a common phrase. Essentially, most agencies have to cover their costs and will not work on projects that are less than, in my experience, £6,000-£8,000.

Interesting, didn't realise that was the case.

What about a small-ish company?....

Energize · 12 Aug 2011 at 01:44

edwardcasbon1 said:
He means 'get out of bed', it's a common phrase. Essentially, most agencies have to cover their costs and will not work on projects that are less than, in my experience, £6,000-£8,000.

Why is that? If you charge the same amount per unit of time then what difference does it make?

GravyMonster · 12 Aug 2011 at 08:51

Energize said:
Why is that? If you charge the same amount per unit of time then what difference does it make?

An agency has many costs that a freelancer/two guys in a bedroom won't have. Eg. Rent, light/heat, NI, CT, etc. Plus there will be employees of the company (eg admin staff) who do not bring money in, but are vital for the operation of the company. Therefore the work done must be charged more for to cover the salaries of these employees.

As an example, the agency I work for has a lower limit of £10k. There are cases where this will be lower, but these are the exceptions rather than the norm.

Hades · 12 Aug 2011 at 09:54

Conrad11 said:
That seems far easier, the problem is quality, what will the quality be like, it would be pointed at a computer screen and the image would need to be readable (quite large fontsize).

Also - how would you stream that over the internet via a Mobile Internet dongle? What happens if the mobile dongle looses connection...what about the speed of the mobile dongle...etc...etc...

Would it work properly is what I am asking? Can I stream over SSL?

See all these things together I was thinking that you would end up having to create some bespoke software to stream rather than using existing technology, which I thought would drive the cost up a lot.

what is the actual requirement? Is it...

1) A camera pointed at the screen and the user?
or
2) To be able to see what is on the screen?

If it's (2) then a camera may not be the most appropriate tool. There may be screen capture tools that do the job better. It might be worth looking into those.

Conrad11 · 12 Aug 2011 at 13:07

Hades said:
what is the actual requirement? Is it...

1) A camera pointed at the screen and the user?
or
2) To be able to see what is on the screen?

If it's (2) then a camera may not be the most appropriate tool. There may be screen capture tools that do the job better. It might be worth looking into those.

Basically to stream what is on screen to the website. The device screen it is streaming is a bespoke machine that I am not allowed to tamper with. It does have VGA out though, but a VGA capture device is quite expensive and it has a strange VGA out that probably won't work (only certain monitors work). That will avoid any issues with the mobile dongle loosing connection (because lets face it - they are unreliable).

So what I thought would be the best way would be to create a .NET application to take a picture every second or something and upload it via secure ftp and just have the a password protected ssl page that refreshes the image every second.

So I was thinking of simply pointing a camera at the screen and streaming that. The only internet available is via a Mobile Internet dongle. The stream NEEDS to be encrypted and password protected on every link. (ie from camera to server and from server to client)

RoyMi6 · 12 Aug 2011 at 16:44

By tampering do you mean "install hardware" or "install software"?

Even using a 1080p camera it can be hard to make out text on a screen... If it's business critical then installing one piece of software shouldn't be a problem unless the bespoke machine is run by a 3rd party. Even then, still worth trying to negotiate as you could have something up and running in minutes.

If you can install software you can use something like this:
http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=SCWebcam

If you HAVE to use a camera pointing at the screen then you can use this:
http://www.yawcam.com/

First can upload screenshots of your desktop via FTP. Second can upload pictures from your attached webcam to FTP.

Conrad11 · 12 Aug 2011 at 17:26

RoyMi6 said:
By tampering do you mean "install hardware" or "install software"?

Even using a 1080p camera it can be hard to make out text on a screen... If it's business critical then installing one piece of software shouldn't be a problem unless the bespoke machine is run by a 3rd party. Even then, still worth trying to negotiate as you could have something up and running in minutes.

If you can install software you can use something like this:
http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=SCWebcam

If you HAVE to use a camera pointing at the screen then you can use this:
http://www.yawcam.com/

First can upload screenshots of your desktop via FTP. Second can upload pictures from your attached webcam to FTP.

Thanks for that - could save me a bit of work.

My main worry is how well they recover from internet disconnection - which more likely than not with an internet dongle. He would want something unmanned.

Will do some testing and see.

UK-AL05 · 12 Aug 2011 at 17:50

edwardcasbon1 said:
He means 'get out of bed', it's a common phrase. Essentially, most agencies have to cover their costs and will not work on projects that are less than, in my experience, £6,000-£8,000.

Yes I meant that, it was a late night =P

Energize · 12 Aug 2011 at 17:58

Spunkey said:
An agency has many costs that a freelancer/two guys in a bedroom won't have. Eg. Rent, light/heat, NI, CT, etc. Plus there will be employees of the company (eg admin staff) who do not bring money in, but are vital for the operation of the company. Therefore the work done must be charged more for to cover the salaries of these employees.

As an example, the agency I work for has a lower limit of £10k. There are cases where this will be lower, but these are the exceptions rather than the norm.

I realise that they have more costs, but I still don't understand why they won't do small projects if they are paid the same amount of money per person-hour as a large project? Surely they don't have £10k in costs for a 6 page website?

UK-AL05 · 12 Aug 2011 at 18:26

To be honest, although cost is also factor. The main reason is that agencies can get away with charging more, even if the work is the same, is that people think agencies are going to be professional even if thats not true. They have more bargaining power, so they can ask for more and only go after the richer clients.

The biggest challenge of starting your own agency, is getting over that one man band image, and making it look bigger than it is. Once you get the richer clients, you can actually turn it into a proper agency.

I've seen agencies charge 50k, when good small independent freelancers would charge like 5k for the equivalent, insane difference.

Its also ignorance on part of freelancers, when they were working for other companies, they did not realize how much they were charging with the owners pocketing the difference.

Energize · 12 Aug 2011 at 19:03

So it's not that these agencies won't work on projects with a fair value of less than £10k but rather they won't charge less than £10k. Large companies having the delusion that the more expensive it is the better the quality of the service regardless of the reality, thus negative price elasticity.

8t10 · 13 Aug 2011 at 12:20

An agency would rather have several large projects than loads of smaller ones. That way they can prepare properly for pitches, make sure all employees are involved instead of two of them and it is financially more secure since less people to make happy and less debtors to chase down. Larger projects also look better on the portfolios to people with money.