PHP Development - Pricing

[gbrian]

Looking for collective thoughts about pricing. How do you price your PHP development?

I have a project for a rather large website (11 million hits/month, fortune 100 company), I am doing the work indirectly through another company.

The work will involve integrating the other companies "tool" within the large website.

I was originally thinking of charging an hourly rate--however, if this particular task does not take that long to finish, but is very valuable...I won't get much out of it.

What are your thoughts? If you charge hourly, what do you charge?

If you charge a flat-fee, how do you come up with the price, value based percentages?

I am interested in your thoughts... thanks!

 

[vacunita]

If you know for a fact it's not going to take you very long then an hourly rate is definetly not a good choice, I would charge project wise. Think about what you are going to be doing, is it just coding, or does it involve design. Integrating other peoples applications usually has its problems as you have to make sure everything works well together. Will you provide Maintenance services after the release. Usually flat rates are better when the service is going to be short. Think about how much you yourself would be willing to pay to have a similar service performed for you if you did not know what you know. Most people like it cheap and functional two concepts that rarely work well together, since functional almost always requires extra time an care and thus is more expensive. Try to balance your need for income with what you think they will pay. And what you know the work your making is worth.

And once you give out a price never back down, it makes you look unprofessional, stick with what you said , so that it doesn't look like you just threw a number at them. And always ask for at least half upfront.

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