You'll know what this costs before you're committed to anything. A website has a fixed price and it's on this page, so you can settle that question right now without speaking to me at all. A web application gets its number once I understand what you actually need, and working that out costs you nothing.
$1,500
Once, to build it and put it live
What the $1,500 covers
What sits outside it
Quoted
One fixed number, once the plan is written
What decides the number
What I won't do
Three steps, and you owe nothing until the end of the third.
You do most of the talking: what the business does, what isn't working, and what you want instead. You don't need a specification or a list of features written beforehand.
What I'd build, in what order, how long each part takes, what it costs, and what I think could go wrong. It's free and it's yours to keep, including to take to another developer.
One number for the work, fixed, in a contract we both sign. If it's more than you want to spend, say so and we'll look at a smaller first version. If I'm not the right person for it, that's the call where I say so.
Four things that don't change with the size of the job.
01
The code lives in your repository, it runs on your hosting account, and the domain stays registered to you. I work inside your accounts, so on the last day there is nothing to pry loose and nothing of yours sitting in my name.
02
Signed by both of us before any work starts. You're hiring a person and not a company: I'm a freelancer, I work for myself, and my name is the one on it.
03
Once we've agreed the work, the number is the number. If I underestimated it, that's mine to carry. I'm the one who estimated it.
04
The setup runs from written instructions and the tests say what's broken. If handing the work on would be painful, I've done it badly, whatever else is true about the software.
A website costs $1,500 to build and put live, then $99 a month to keep it running. That is the whole of it, and it does not move once we have agreed the work.
Anything outside the list on this page is a different job with its own fixed price, and that number comes once the plan is written.
The website includes any number of pages your business needs, the content, the domain and hosting, and your Google listing.
Most businesses have these pages: Home, About, Services, Pricing, Reviews, Contact, and a few others. The content is written from what you tell me, because sitting down to write a page about your own business is the step that stalls most websites for months.
A web application is quoted as one fixed number once the plan is written.
The plan is free, and it outlines what the application will do and how much it will cost to build.
There's no fixed list, because the whole point of an application is that it's built around how your business runs. What it includes is whatever the plan says it includes, written down and agreed before anyone starts.
What's in every build regardless: the screens people use, the database behind them, the accounts and permissions that decide who sees what, hosting and deployment set up and working, tests that tell you when something is broken, and written instructions so somebody else could pick it up. None of those are extras and none of them get itemized separately.
A website tells people about your business. An application does work, either for your customers or for your staff. Put that way it's usually obvious which one you're describing.
The test I use is whether anybody logs in. If people need accounts, or your staff need screens to run something from, or the thing has to remember what a customer did last time, it's an application. If it's pages that say what you do and how to reach you, it's a website.
Plenty of businesses need the website now and the application two years from now. If that's you, I'll say so, and I won't sell you the second one early.
Yes, and most people do. The work splits into pieces that each finish something you can actually look at, and each piece is invoiced as it lands. You're never paying months ahead of what exists.
The split is written into the plan before either of us signs anything, so you can see what you'd be committing to and where you could stop.
Then it costs me. The number is fixed once we've agreed the work, and if I estimated it badly that's mine to carry. I'm the one who estimated it.
It moves only when you ask for something that wasn't in the plan, and that gets quoted on its own before anyone builds it. A change is a decision you make, not a surprise on an invoice.
A paragraph about the business is enough. If it's a website you already have the number. If it's an application, I'll tell you what it would take to find out.