Reality check on custom home page css
-
Hi there,
My husband and I are building a hosted WordPress site, and we wanted some css for a custom homepage. It would have a menu bar across the top, and two other sections: one for a main image (with a piece that links to another part of the site), and a lower section which would house button links to our client list (we’ve got about twelve).
We’ve gotten a quote from one development house (dh is a software engineer, but hasn’t yet delved into css) for eight hours . . . to the tune of $600. Which seems pretty ridiculous. It has taken me hours to dink around with css over at my own blog, (tweaking layout, alignment, and such–I have NO coding experience), and while I’m not doing things quite as scrap-the-theme-on-one-page-and-do-something-new, this seems kind of ridiculous. I can read an html or css page and know what it’s doing . . . and it seems that this would require less than a couple hundred lines of code. (Even if it was 500 . . . that’s still not a lot of typing, ya know?)
The images we have were done by a graphic design friend, and they’re absolutely amazing . . . maybe the local dev house is looking at those and thinking we’ve got $$$ to burn?
-
Your question may be better answered at the volunteer forums for the self-hosted WordPress.org software at http://wordpress.org/support/
This forum is for WordPress.com blogs. See http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/ to learn about the differences.
There’s also a chance some of the volunteers here can comment on the web designer’s pricing you mentioned, but I would recommend posting at http://wordpress.org/support/ and then adding a link here.
-
Isn’t there a way to edit/delete posts? This is getting embarrassing . . . [Links fixed by staff.]
-
No there is not. As the feature was abused in the past we have not had it for years. Only Staff and Moderators can edit/delete forum post.
-
-
-
I think the ‘local dev house’ is looking at that comp and thinking you’re a professional business outfit to whom they’ll naturally charge professional business rates, because that’s how you’re presenting yourselves.
If you want this done on the cheap, it would probably be a good idea to nix the copy about being ‘professional’ and replace it with something more like the ‘we’re just a husband and wife outfit who need a tiny bit of extra help customising our WordPress install’ stuff you did here.
-
In my opinion, $75 per hour is not outrageous, but you mention they have not yet delved into CSS, so that means they are probably padding things a little on the hours (you end up paying for them to experiment). And as Wank says, they may well be looking at you as an established, thriving business.
From the brief description of what you want, I would think something more in the range of $400 would be appropriate.
-
The pricing seems reasonable given that they’ve never worked for you and don’t know if you’re high-maintenance or not. Agencies and companies are more expensive, because they’re building in layers of infrastructure and profit and they take more time to do things.
This task doesn’t sound hard, or time-consuming, but then again, I’ve quoted reasonable prices and ended up losing money because the client was one of those 25 email a day types who doesn’t tell you about everything they want the site to do beforehand.
You might have the best luck approaching a freelancer or even a student at a web design shop, as long as you agree on the terms in advance. Someone at the same level of business as you. TSP could do this in his sleep, for instance. He charges more than that rate, but it won’t take him long if what you’ve described here is the entire scope of the project.
- The topic ‘Reality check on custom home page css’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 