Price Guide Required

[Matt_T_hat]

I have been running a my own firm for a about a year and genrall act as a data systems consultant. A stray comment about three months ago has led me to be creating a computer archive of videos held in stock for a local video shop. The shop has recently changed hands and the owner is looking to invest some money in improving it.

I'm going to cut and past my basic summery of the job into this post. What I need to do is come up with a price that is fair. I will probably discount them on data entry labour and so forth and forego the usuall consultancy fee's

Please leave suggestions in UK POUNDS (£) if at all possible.

Quote one
Video Database with:
Tables
· Film
· Format
· Director
· Actors
· Price Band

Must also be able to:
· Be searchable
· Store pictures
· Determine Price banding

Also Required:
Limited Data entry until client data entry training is complete. Approximately 12 Hours in total.


Quote Two

Public Use Front-End

Given the database system has been created a front-end for public use is also required. It must enable customer to search by different criteria and view images of the video covers and / or read the text that has been entered into the system. The interface must be so simple as to require no training at all.


Quote Three
As an alternative to Quote Two.
The system contains the details of image files and a free type text field semi-formatted as HTML.

A VB form carrying the Internet Explorer Object to allow a highly controlled display of (ASP) web pages produced by Microsoft’s My Personal Web Server. The ASP system would need to take care of some conditional formatting of content and would need to allow for a fully functional search system to display results from the database. The system will need to be robust with no outside links and simple enough that a customer can use it without ever having been shown how.


So there you have it what would you charge? Your advice will be greatly apriciated.

[hellswraith]

6000 US dollars

[Matt_T_hat]

Really!? I was going to charge £500 to £600...

[hellswraith]

It depends. If they can do without this application, then you must charge less. If this will help them out in their core business area, and provide them extra revenue, then you need to take that into account. Revenue can come from saving employees time (therefor letting the employees do even more work for the same amount of money), from stricter inventory control, or many other things this system will provide them.

What I did to come up with the price is go off a recent contract I did. I did about 5 weeks of work for 6000.

Just look at this:

Limited Data entry until client data entry training is complete. Approximately 12 Hours in total

You are saying just doing data entry and client data entry training is going to take you 12 hours. As a consultant, I would charge at least 35 US dollars an hour. That 12 hours turns into 420 US dollars. JUST FOR TRAINING AND DATA ENTRY.

So, looking at the rest of the project, I would add another 40-60 hours for all work involved. You can see how it adds up. Don't sell yourself short, but don't price yourself out of the contract either. Find the savings for the company that this application will provide them, and show them how paying you more money will actually save them money in the long run.

[LabtroRob]

Video stores are actually fairly complicated beasts in some respects as far as a database goes.

You need to track the movie, individual copies of the movie, the renters, changing fees, historical records of the fees, late fees, etc.

Besides, why would you custom build an application that has such a wide market? Every video store needs this.

One of two things will happen here:

1) You'll quote your original price of 500-600 pounds. The guy will be happy, you'll be suffer miserably since you'll find out this will take you quite a bit of work.

2) You'll quote the more appropriate prices of $6000. The guy will go out, and buy a piece of off the shelf software for a couple hundred bucks.

If you were smart, you might investigate what is available commercially, and see if there is a need you can fill.

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

Originally posted by LabtroRob
Video stores are actually fairly complicated beasts in some respects as far as a database goes.

You need to track the movie, individual copies of the movie, the renters, changing fees, historical records of the fees, late fees, etc.

Besides, why would you custom build an application that has such a wide market? Every video store needs this.

One of two things will happen here:

1) You'll quote your original price of 500-600 pounds. The guy will be happy, you'll be suffer miserably since you'll find out this will take you quite a bit of work.

2) You'll quote the more appropriate prices of $6000. The guy will go out, and buy a piece of off the shelf software for a couple hundred bucks.

If you were smart, you might investigate what is available commercially, and see if there is a need you can fill.

Since they want a relational database that is also publically accesible, and aligned with their main system, I would think this would have to be a custom project. So I doubt they'll be able to purchase something commercial.

[LabtroRob]

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Video+rental+software

I got 751 hits. A quick look there had everything from a basic database for storing rental information w/ a front end for $49.00, to a more complex system that could be setup w/ ADO links to other databases, web display, and client terminal software.

Some of them were even freeware.

This isn't meant to knock down Matt, this just gives him an alternative.

Instead of charging 500-600 pounds for a custom written database application, he can charge the customer 500-600 pounds to research, install, configure, and train the users on one of these existing solutions.

In the end, the customer will get a much more robust application (if he does the research part right), and Matt will probably have quite a bit less work to do.