Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#1

Post by wanderboy » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 10:28 PM UTC

I have a couple of features that I'm interested in adding to my Web application, and I've also re-designed a few page elements. If I had $10,000 lying around I'd walk up to the office of my local Web development agency, but alas that is not the case - I'm a college student, and I'm broke.

Provided that I provide very detailed spec documents and mock-ups, is it realistic to expect that a custom search feature, social networking/profile features, and a few static pages will cost me more than $2000?

I know most designers/developers charge $60+ hourly, so my question is really, "How long does it take to implement these features?"

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#2

Post by rguzman » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 10:56 PM UTC

Since the work consists of adding to an existing application it is even harder to estimate than usual. In fact, so hard that it is not worth trying. A lot of the time could potentially be spent just figuring out how your application works and the good ways to implement the new feature.

That said...

As long as all the flows for the features are well-defined, I'd say it'd be doable to implement basic search, social networking, and some facility for static pages for $2k. It should be a few of days worth of work for a developer familiar with the framework/libraries your app uses.

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#3

Post by joevandyk » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 10:58 PM UTC

How well does it need to scale? How many concurrent users? How easy does it need to be to add future features to? Does existing off the shelf software not give you most of what you want? What's meant by "social networking / profile features"?

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#4

Post by callmeed » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 10:59 PM UTC

I can't really speak to design (we do that in-house), but most of the good/keeper Rails developers that I've used in the last year have been in the $100-150/hour range. So, for $2K that gets you 13 to 20 hours of development.

For that, I think you might be able to implement one of the features you mentioned but not all of them.

I've had good luck finding developers at AuthenticJobs. If you post a freelance job there and you're detailed about your budget and requirements, most good devs will be honest about what's feasible.

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#5

Post by blakeperdue » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:07 PM UTC

Most designers/developers that I know that are good charge closer to $100 or $150 per hour. What you described seems like it would take closer to 30 or 40 hours, so I would say the cost would be more like $3k to $5k.

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#6

Post by csomar » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:15 PM UTC

Don't waste your time making useless estimates. Focus on what's important. Now return back to your project

- Check all the features you want to implement. What are the most important ones? Prioritize.

- Find a good freelance. The higher you pay, the more quality you'll get. I guess that $50/hour will be okay and would get you a good dev. It depends on the project and the quality your users are expecting. Start implementing the most important feature. Go as money can go with you. If your project is profitable, you get cash back.

- Learn. If it's jQuery it's not hard, if it's PHP it's not impossible. Even if you don't create features, you can debug them.

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#7

Post by dkuchar » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:19 PM UTC

2 hours of work from this guy: http://le.mu.rs/motherfucker/Index/Entries/2010/6/24_What_mo...

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#8

Post by guiseppecalzone » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:20 PM UTC

Check out freelancer.com and rentacoder.com. You have to be extremely detailed and agree on everything in advance. You could always put your idea up for a bid. If it's too high, pull it down. Another approach is to break your specs down to individual pieces. Then, start by outsourcing the smallest piece as a test.

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#9

Post by SamAtt » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:23 PM UTC

Can you tell us more about what the site is built on (Language/Framework)? If you've built your site on something standard like Wordpress or Django than it will be much cheaper to implement these features. If it's custom all the way things get a bit trickier.

The biggest problem with this sort of request is that a lot of people out there will say they can do it but won't do it well. Sites like scriptlance will probably get you quotes in the few hundred dollar range but their code will be of poor quality and missing important "behind the scenes" features like error handling. So you really have to be careful (and if you tell us more maybe we can help you with that)

Re: Ask HN: What does $2000 in Web design/development buy you these days?

#10

Post by sr3d » Thu, Jul 01, 2010, 11:23 PM UTC

I'm working with a web development shop in Vietnam (disclosure: I own about 1/5 of the company). If you already have the mock-ups, then send it my way and I can forward it to the guys. I think if the requirements are not crazy, you can make good use of your $2K. Here's the link to the company's brochure: http://www.scribd.com/doc/29808412/Quick-Solution-Credential...

Cheers!