In my experience, contracting website construction can be a confusing process. My goal is to simplify process so you know what you are paying for, and you can get the site you need at a price that works for you.
Below is a table that lays out website configurations and features with their prices.
| Option | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
Step One: Site Setup |
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| Static Site Setup | $200* |
A static site is the most basic kind of site I can build for you. But just because it's basic doesn't mean it isn't well made and it won't look great (geektalk: all my sites use W3C compliant, search engine optimized, semantic, table-less HTML). However, static sites lack any kind of method of editing or adding content directly through the site. They consist only of raw HTML files on the server that need to be downloaded and edited by hand then re-uploaded any time you want to make changes to your site's content. This process is a little inconvenient and can be a bit intimidating if you aren't already familiar with FTP and writing HTML markup.
Static sites are simple and reliable, though, and work great when all you need is to publish some information on the web that won't change very often. Static sites are limited to 4-5 pages. If you need a bigger site you should upgrade to a content managed site. |
| Content Managed Site Setup | $450* |
Content managed (CMS) websites provide a mechanism for logging in and editing site content directly, and thus are much easier to manage. If your website plays a major part of your overall business or marketing plan, it makes sense to have a site that you can easily update and manage yourself since regularly updated sites will get more traffic.
Content managed sites are essentially applications for publishing web content. In addition to giving you a way to manage content, they are very good at publishing different kinds of content as well, such as blogs, calendars, photo galleries, RSS feeds and more. You can also use them to add user-generated content to your site or take credit card payments. My content managed sites are built with a popular, open-source (free) content management system. This is good for you because you'll get a robust, secure, easy to use website. Since there is a lot of published knowledge and other people out there that use the same technology, you won't be locked into using me for any future upgrades or enhancements you wish to perform. |
Step Two: Site Design |
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| Template Design | Included in setup cost | For a lot of people, all they really need is to have a great looking site that draws the user's attention to its content, and this can be achieved by using one of my templates**. Sure it won't be completely unique, but the likelihood of a user ever realizing that is pretty slim. |
| Custom site design | $750 | If the look of your site needs to be completely unique or you need it fit with your organization's brand identity, you can work with me or one of my designers to develop a custom design for your site. |
| Implement a design | $350 | If you're a designer or you have designers on staff, you can hand off a design to me, and I will apply it to your site. |
Step Three: Extra Features (CMS site only) |
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| Uploadable image galleries | $150 | Create image galleries that you can upload images to. |
| Custom contact form | $100 | Add custom fields for your contact form (standard contact form is included). |
| Blog | $100 | Add a blog with free tagging, comments, and RSS feeds. |
| Custom content types | $150/type | Add content types with custom fields (including images, video, etc) to make for easier data entry. |
| Podcast | $250 | Add a podcast feed with uploadable MP3 files. |
| Events calendar | $250 | Add an event calendar, includes user submitted events. |
| Take payments | $250+ | Take donations or payments for certain kinds of posts (i.e. featured/promoted content, event registration, etc). Price may vary depending on setup. |
| Ad management | $200 | Add, manage, and track advertisements on your site |
| Custom features | $--- | There's really a lot of things I am capable of doing with your site, like integration with APIs such as Google maps, RSS feed agregation, custom Flash elements, etc. If you have an idea there's a pretty good chance I can make it happen. Price will be determined in an estimate. |
* Setup cost does not include webhosting. I do not provide webhosting but can set it up for you free of charge or you can go here and sign up. If you already have webhosting it needs to meet my minum requirements:Linux/Apache hosting; PHP 4.4+, PHP5+ (for some features); MySQL 4.1+.
**Templates are either designed by me or are licensed under public domain