How much does it cost to build a website: reboot

    Recently I came across an article by Igor Sukhinin about the cost of web development. And for several days the topic touched by the author jumped, galloped and made faces, not letting herself be forgotten. And all this for the sake of me finally remembering the already dusty disk on the shelf.

    On the disk, a St. Petersburg company (someone, probably familiar to you - Yumisoft) shares his thoughts on the present and future site building market. Riding around cities and villages, the guys were horrified: in the regions, web development is in complete ... decline. They scratched their turnips and decided to figure out what was happening and how much.

    So, here I will tell only about the most significant, in my opinion, moments of the study and answer the question outlined in the topic. I would be glad if you share your thoughts.

    And in order to prevent my article from becoming subjective, and in order to reinforce or refute the research with real data, I asked my friend from Cheboksary, Pavel Nikiforov, to comment on my conclusions (he has been working as a freelancer for more than 7 years , and the last 2 years directly makes sites by opening his small design studio “BAS” ).

    So how much is it?


    The report states that 47% of web studios in the regions create sites in the price category of up to 30,000 rubles, 39% - at a price of 30,000 to 90,000 rubles. With freelancers in the regions of Russia, the situation is even worse: 49% of them create websites at prices ranging from 10 to 30 thousand rubles, and 39% do even up to 10 000 rubles. In capitals, the cost of similar work is 2-3 times higher.

    The cost of creating a site in the regions of Russia
    - Pasha, how much can you refute or confirm these figures?
    - Looking at these data, I see in them a reflection of my opinion. Although there are very highly qualified freelancers in the regions, whose services are far from cheap. They can even work only on the European market (this is now a very interesting prospect). In Cheboksary, we have 5-6 of them. I’m familiar with some of them.

    - What are the prices for a job 2-3 years ago, what now?
    - I can’t say the prices of the studios, I’m used to working without looking at the prices of my colleagues. 3 years ago I made a couple of sites as a freelancer for 10,000 rubles each. But 2 years ago, he began to work at different prices and on a different principle (teamwork) and the cost of projects increased. The first joint project with the photographer we did for 15,000 rubles, which would be what to show clients (a portfolio of one good work is also a portfolio). Then it’s more complicated, already for 50,000 rubles. Both sites are made to flash.


    Summing up the intermediate result, I note that the low cost of developing sites in the regions is largely due to the fact that the customers of these services have not yet psychologically realized their real value. That is, the regional customer does not understand what the cost of the site creation service is made up of. We must pay tribute to some regional businessmen who, having burned up on the first experience of ordering a site on the principle of "cheap and cheerful, that is," begin to perceive the site as a real commercial tool. They are more serious in choosing a contractor and the amount of investment in creating the site, so the task of the developer is to improve their skills, helping the customer to achieve these goals.

    By 2009, changes are coming. The number of offers in the price range from 90 to 150 thousand rubles. and from 150 thousand to 500 thousand rubles. This applies to capitals. Regional developers, on the other hand, must move into the next price category for them — studio services should cost from 30 to 90 thousand rubles from, and from 10 to 30 thousand rubles from freelancers.

    The dynamics of the price of the creation of sites in the capital
    - Pasha, do you agree with such trends? Is there a move towards an increase in value? What contributes to this?
    - Freelancers are also different. There are freelancers who do work far from cheaper studios and do it justifiably. I work in the region and, to date, with amounts from 30 to 150 thousand rubles. The increase in value is accompanied by an increase in prices for everything (simply inflation), respectively, and the salary of the team also needs to be increased. And the second point is the portfolio. If the portfolio grows and improves, then prices can be raised, I think.


    CMS and web development


    The next part of the study is much more curious. It turns out that the share of CMS in the cost of creating a site is from 30% to 50%. Moreover, the balanced cost of CMS as a toolkit should not exceed 20-30% of the cost of the entire service. Moreover, now regional developers do not earn on their services, but on the resale of the CMS itself. They buy it with an affiliate discount of 50%, and sell it at the initial price. Their earnings are the remaining difference. I agree with the authors of the study: in this situation, the business becomes a dead end. The developer is firmly attached to the CMS brand, he does not create added value by providing his services, which means that he has no opportunities for developing his own business. In this situation, he does not have the opportunity to improve the quality of his services.

    Share of CMS in the cost of services: ratio among developers
    - What do you say about these numbers? What is the cost of CMS in your work?
    - It is not always possible to estimate the cost of the engine as a percentage, it is more convenient to make a table, which will also not be entirely true, to be honest.
    Business card website: engine cost at work - 10-15%
    Online store: engine cost 25-30%
    Corporate website: engine cost 30%
    This ratio is for the developer, not the customer, the prices are given taking into account my partner discounts. But the prices for content management systems, if they change, are only for the higher. In this case, the web developer needs not only to optimize their costs by choosing a more affordable product, but also to increase the total cost of their services by improving the quality and meeting customer needs in terms of the site’s commercial effectiveness.

    Another development prospect for regional developers may be interaction with metropolitan companies. Against the background of a shortage of IT personnel, many Moscow and St. Petersburg developers are ready to give existing orders for outsourcing to the regions. With such a scheme, lower cost of services in the regions is a competitive advantage, but the quality of execution should be at the level of capitals.

    - Pasha, tell me, are there many customers on your list from St. Petersburg and Moscow? And how many customers from the regions?
    - Yes, probably most of St. Petersburg and Moscow. There are also customers from Cheboksary (I live here), but working with local customers is more difficult, because for regions, however, an amount over 30,000 rubles is considered large and the requirements are very stringent and not always justified.

    - When assessing the cost of your work, do you take into account where the customer came from?
    - I do not look at the region, I’m more trying to predict the difficulties that may arise. Here you have to be a psychologist. There are customers from small companies, but there are "corporate people", and so it’s more difficult to work with "corporate people" and there are a lot of alterations, respectively, and the price is higher for such customers.

    Actually, why all this. I return to the article by Igor Sukhinin. Igor speaks about the illiteracy of the customer. It turns out that this is not a special case, but modern reality. BUT: do the developers themselves do something to increase their credibility and earn more? How else can we say that customers pay more and adequately respond to six-digit numbers? A small "studio-at-home"? They also do not claim to be a real business. After all, what's the point of learning, doing more if the customer is not ready for this? They continue to sit at the “work at home” level.

    What needs to be done to make web development, a promising, dynamic direction, become one? And didn’t exist as a hobby for high school students? And how to deal with customers who still believe that a site is 10 pages that are written in a notebook?

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