How much will it cost?

Your first question is always this one: How much will it cost?

Your price range will vary depending on what you are looking to build, because each system is custom-built. We don't sell off-the-shelf software, which is often too generic to fit our clients' needs, especially for more advanced applications.

Anything is possible, but...

Of course, you should price shop. But there's also a few things to keep in mind while you price-shop:

Can you have a $1 million home built for $500,000? Absolutely. If you want something that'll leak in 2 years, rot in 10 years, and be not liveable in 20 years. No marble floors, no quality wood framing,
Can you get a $10,000 website built for $2000? Absolutely. The layout will be from a template you can purchase for $50 yourself. The 'independent contractors' will be unreachable half-way through the project when they realize they can't finish it. The system will be full of bugs, they don't understand what you want, and you've already paid the 50% deposit so it's too late to turn back.

The point is, no matter what price you find, there will always be a lower price elsewhere. The question becomes whether these web designers you find are:

competent: able to completely understand and finish your project
creative: able to deliver original designs which are not templated, and are consistent with your corporate image
professional: able to provide you with full updates on project, and documentation of all correspondence

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2 Crucial Steps

CreativeSurge prefers that clients do two things:

Give us a wishlist of everything you'd want on the site, given that money is no object. From this list, we will extract crucial information for your project. We'll know what your goals are, and we'll help you eliminate functions and features which do not contribute to your goals, saving you money along the way.
Give us your budget price range. Most clients are afraid to give this to us, thinking we'll take their budget and try to over-price our services. This is definitely not our intent, and we are asking only for a range. Is it $500-5000? Or $5000-20,000? Your budget range will allow us to properly analyze your project within your financial constraints.

An experienced project manager will develop a preliminary and detailed proposal based on your goals and objectives, and everything will be well documented.

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Rule of Thumbs

As a general rule of thumb, you cannot credibly develop a complete website with an original design for less than $1500-2000. You will always see $200, $500, $1000 offers. Ask yourself this question: if they are genuinely competent, do they really have to lower their price and scrummage through message boards looking for jobs?
Avoid 1-man or 2-man contractor teams. Deal only with a credible business which has a solid reputation and established client base. It is virtually impossible for 1-man or 2-man teams to provide responsive customer service, creative design, and the necessary expertise for a range of development skills.
Always, always, always ask to see past clients and the work they have done before. Not just 1 client or 2 clients, but at least 3 or 4.

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Found a Lower Price? Worst-Case Scenarios

Software project failure is often devastating to an organization. Schedule slips, buggy releases and missing features can mean the end of the project or even financial ruin for a company. The Standish Group research shows a staggering 31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed. Further results indicate 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimates.

You might be wondering what could possibly happen if you go with a lower price. Here are just some of the many things our past clients have experienced, when they approached us to fix the problems that other developers created:

Their graphics designers purchase $50 templates, and their website lacks an original look and feel which is consistent with their corporate image.
Your deadline was 2 months ago and the developers don't even have a test system with all the functionality.
The systems are buggy, and the developers are nowhere to be found because they weren't even an established business to begin with.
You paid a big up-front deposit, and the developers you hired are not responsive to your requests for project updates. You can't track the status of the project besides hearing them say "we're working on this...", and they convince you that you can't see anything until the project is finished.
Your 1-man or 2-man developers don't have the expertise they claimed, and they're learning the technologies as they build your website. This results in poorly developed and buggy systems, with no chance of ever being able to add new features and updates.

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