Do you like signing a blank check?

Neither do I. That's why I won't quote a fixed price per page, per site, per form, or per anything, except per hour.

Does that put the burden back on you? I really don't want to do that, either, so one of the first things we need to do is to agree on a way to work together.

It's natural to want a project to be completed on time, within budget, and with quality. For complex, one-of-a-kind projects, though, we often have to accept that we can control only two of those variables, at most. For a web site, especially a business site, timeliness and quality are two things that are difficult to compensate for, once they're gone.

So that brings us back to price. It is reasonable for you to want to know what a web project will cost, so arriving at that estimate and agreeing on what it represents are an important part of developing a web site. I need to know what I'm going to do, but first you have to tell me what you want.

Who are the people you want to reach?

What do you want them to know about you before they ever meet you or do business with you?

What do you want your web site to accomplish?

When you can answer those questions, then we can get down to the details, how many pages, how many images and what kind of images, what kind of interaction, how those people will contact you, and so on. We also need to agree on who will provide or develop various materials, such as logos, photographs, and descriptive information. This is the information that I need to develop your estimate, which will include a time frame as well as an expected cost, along with any other issues that may need to be addressed.

That's how it works, in a nutshell.

What would you like to see on your web site? Tell me.