Fair charge for installation service?

[hgweber]

What would be a fair price to charge for a installation and client configuration of osCommerce?

 

What I did up to now: I uploaded osCommerce 2.2 to the client's virtual webserver and configured to work Admin and Catalog with his PHP/MySQL-Setup. At the moment there's only the oscommerce.sql as example imported. I also installed phpMyAdmin for him.

 

It took me some hours as I'm new to osCommerce (to be exactly: was new, three days ago...), and I've no glue what is a fair price to charge up to now, as I cant't charge all the hours, do I? I have some basic knowledge in PHP and MySQL and good knowledge in CSS, HTML and design.

 

For me osCommerce is a bit away to be used out of the box, and this doing research, troubleshooting, testing and so on will continue I assume. But at what price, reasonable for my client and for me...

 

The next woul be to import an existing BIG sql database to osCommerce and to adapt design to the client's needs with css and so on.

 

Thanks for some helpful ideas! Hope this ist not OT in this forum.

[mattice]

It depends on what you do feel is good. If you want to charge him $600 bucks you can.

If you want to charge him nothing.. cool too.

Look at how many hours you spend, ask yourself what you want to earn per hour or for the total project...

 

Installing/configuring should be less then coding, that's for sure.

I'd say the going rate for a full install will be around $50.

I'd do it for that amount :)

 

Mattice

[jbinternet]

It depends on what you do feel is good. If you want to charge him $600 bucks you can.

If you want to charge him nothing.. cool too.

Look at how many hours you spend, ask yourself what you want to earn per hour or for the total project...

 

Installing/configuring should be less then coding, that's for sure.

I'd say the going rate for a full install will be around $50.

I'd do it for that amount :)

 

Mattice

 

Mattice,

 

----

I'd like some help doing an install on a windows 2000 system. I need some help. I can pay via PayPal. Contact me offline if you are available.

 

[email protected]

[Trusten]

depends on how much teh business makes and how much the client makes.

 

personally, to install and configure, i'd do it for less than 50, lol. but when it omes to coding and stuff, then it's gonna have to cost.

 

but just to install and piece some files together. *shrug*

[wkrecords]

i think i would do it for like $20,$30

 

it aint that hard to setup really

depending on how many products they want u to put up and stuff aswell

 

to install n no products jus configuring

i would do for 20

[Guest]

I should get you guys to do my work for me if you're gonna charge as low as that.

 

I charge my customers ?500+ to get the system up and running with a simple 10 page website and OSC with 10 demo prods, some customization, eg. logos and colours etc... an then 2 hours of training!

 

Maybe I'll get the customers, you guy do the work for $30 and I get RICH!!

 

wohahahahahahahahahaha!

 

LOL,

 

C (uk)

[burt]

I think we are now talking about two seperate issues.

 

(a) a simple install of 2.2 should take no longer than 15 minutes and thats;

- download the latest version

- unzip it

- upload to your webspace

- make a mysql database

- set chmod 777 on a few files

- run install

- delete install directory

- reset chmod on a few files

 

(B) Making the installed files into something that does not look like a 'standard' OsCommerce shop and then tweaking the files to suit the shops particular products is what takes time, effort and skill and the person doing that should be recompensed appropriately.

 

So, $50 for (a) is a good rate (IMHO). For (B) it depends upon the complexity of the store and the look that the client wants. Charges could be anything between $200 (?175) to $100,000 (?80,000)...

 

BTW Craig, IMO your charges seem a little on the low side (though I haven't seen any examples of your work) admittedly. URLs ?

[mattice]

BTW Craig, IMO your charges seem a little on the low side (though I haven't seen any examples of your work) admittedly. URLs ?

 

It depends Burt. If the make-over is just "style-sheet / header / footer and images on the boxes instead of text"

I'd consider that seriously expensive.

 

If you're talking custom applications, coded from scratch especially for that shop okay,

but just throwing in a few mods will be as simple as install them once,

re-pack that install and run that on your next install. (Loaded Snapshot basically)

And basic training comes pretty cheap from www.oscdox.com :)

 

but just to install and piece some files together. *shrug*

 

How's that? What about e-mailing, support etc? I've never installed a cart 'just like that',

clients always ask you instead of this forum after you did the install. Not that that is a bad thing, just consumes time.

Anybody that has ever done installs / coding for money knows what I'm talking about.

The $50 also takes that into consideration.

On the average install-client (just looked) I get around 15 e-mails with non-install related osc questions.

 

but when it omes to coding and stuff, then it's gonna have to cost.

So if I would want a list of the last 10 items added? What would that cost me ? :)

Coding doesn't come cheap. But neither does a plumber. Or any specialist.

 

I'm not going to turn this thread in a commercial 'hire me' sort of thing so I won't quote any rates.

 

But I did PM Graig though :idea:

[burt]

BTW Craig, IMO your charges seem a little on the low side (though I haven't seen any examples of your work) admittedly. URLs ?

 

It depends Burt. If the make-over is just "style-sheet / header / footer and images on the boxes instead of text"

I'd consider that seriously expensive.

 

I agree with you - what you say there is probably a couple of hours work tops and should be charged for appropriately...but Craig said this:

I charge my customers ?500+ to get the system up and running with a simple 10 page website and OSC with 10 demo prods, some customization, eg. logos and colours etc... an then 2 hours of training!

 

?500 to get an Osc site up, AND a 10 page website - customized to match each other, with bespoke graphics, and 2 hours of training - for ?500 that is seriously cheap! (in the UK)

 

The 2 hours training alone is worth ?300 at least! Anyway, as you say this is not the place for comemrcial discussions.

[mattice]

Damn, I'm gonna do 20000 installs and buy a place in England.

Live there, get rich. Buy an umbrella, drink tea, eat crumpets,

 

Always liked Manchester... heard Moss Side houses are pretty cheap :)

[Trusten]

it rains too much.

 

quote me.

 

what you don't know in life, you pay for. if it doesn't invovle addign extra pages, and coding, i don't really think it should be that expensive.

 

if you have to take the osc out of a box and turn it into a full blown new site, then yeah, make them pay.

 

but just to unzip a folder and toss it onto a site? come on.

 

i don't see where he makes mention of 500 pounds, etc. etc. etc.

 

i guess we're all never going to agree.

[mattice]

it rains too much.

 

quote me.

I'm quoting you. Holland's pretty rainy so I'm used to that :)

 

but just to unzip a folder and toss it onto a site? come on.

Ever done an install with just FTP access?

Or some stupid control panel that will only allow you to upload 1 single file at the time?

PHP configuration issues?

If you are living in a root environment all is good, but IRL you are probably not installing something for a client with root shell.

The 'going rate' quoted earlier is for ANY install, not just the unzip-and-go-check-your-PayPal-account type.

 

And people that can not fix their washing machine hire a mechanic.

I'd say $30 just to park your car on my lawn is pretty expensive,

yet that's what any mechanic will charge you BEFORE he has even looked at your washing machine.

 

Conclusion: I've learned to fix my own washing machine.

If it's beyond me I need that mechanic, no matter what he asks or I will live in dirty underwear... :)

[Guest]

OK, so ?500 is on the cheap side admittedly...

 

BUT... With the market the way it is at the moment, it is increasingly difficult to get NEW customers involved in SPENDING money to get online. Or even contemplate e-commerce no matter how good you make it look!

 

So we offer a service that we have pre-built and configured offline to a standard that we are happy with! That has taken a number of hours of work! So if ?x00 worth of development time went into the single development and customization, then all we need to do is sell out ?500 project y times to get the money and time invested back! Which IMHO is a reasonable formula. As long as y is not a HUGE multiple of x.

 

Training: well that's another ball game. If you can get away with ?300 p/hour then you have a rich customer base. We are struggling at ?800 per day at the moment!

 

Many of our customers need a simple solution for max profit, and we provide the basic to get them started.

 

Admittedly again, we rarely sell just the ?500 base option, and usually get a hosting, support and build contract with it, which means we do it all for the customer bar getting the products. In some cases we even do the marketing!

 

OSC examples are THIN at the moment, because we are still in the DEV phase of quite a few projects, but have a look at this URL for an example of some PHP/MySQL qork we've been doing lately if your interested:

 

http://www.alresfordrfc.org.uk

 

CHeers,

 

C

[Guest]

what happened there?? Sorry, can a MOD delete the message 2 up by me!

 

C