[capty99]

As you know I work for a magazine controlling their website. I normally work 10 - 15 hours a week on intern money. Barely nothing.

But they are launching a new section / really a completely new offshoot of the site that I am going to have to code from scracth.

A real basic overview it is a portal that a bunch of stores / shopping centers in the area are going to be a part of.

Each shopping center will have its own section with a directory of the store/ all pertinent contact information etc... that a web user would want when they searched for that store online.

Then within that a number of those individual stores will have their own dedicated pages with the same kind of information, but also a sort of coupon service.

Finally, many of the stores will also feature individual items which will be thrown into one large community store full of different items.



I have been using OScommerce in the past couple months and plan to use that for the individual items portion of the site but integrating the rest of the system seemlessly so it looks like one big happy party.

This is from scratch php/mysql work, and then the design aspect also.

What would you charge for a similar site, i know i may be short on details.

I'm gonna be fair and give them credit for being my current employer that really has done right by me, but i want to be compensated correctly.

I estimate a 15-20 hr job for initial setup. Does that sound right also?

Any help or guidance appreciated.

[Nayana]

Guestimate how long it will take you, then double the time, because unless you're a time-management genius, things always take longer than expected.

I'm assuming this is a contract job? You should guess your hours and then charge, maybe, twice as much as you're currently being paid per hour.

[PsychoCoder]

I don't know if I would double it, but I would most certainly add extra hours to account for any *unexpected* events during the development process, which inevitably happen. SO if you feel you can honestly and safely have it done in 25 hours, tell them 35, always give yourself a buffer. Trust me, you don't want to get into a situation where you don't have that buffer and have something happen that will push back a deadline.

[Nayana]

I guess I estimate way too low

This post has been edited by Nayana: 10 February 2008 - 12:30 PM

[PsychoCoder]

Learning to write proposals can take some time to master, and a lot of the estimating is having a firm grasp of your own abilities as a programmer. When I first started I always estimated wrong because I wanted to impress so I would always go low, and inevitably it would come back to bite me in the ass. As you grow ans a programmer it does become easier