Are you planning to have a web presence for your business or you want to start a new online business? The most important issue for you might be to find the right company or an expert for your website, android/iPhone app or software. More importantly you might not be sure how much a project should cost.

1. Don’t opt for the lowest bidder

Different web developers and companies might pitch very different price for the same idea, and if you don’t know how much it should cost, then you will be tempted to opt for the cheapest option in front of you. And you will surely regret doing that because you will end up paying much more for additional features, you might end up paying for fixing the bugs for the rest of your life, or you might have to restart the project from the scratch and spend on a new developer. It is tempting but not really the recommended option.

2. Hourly Rate

The average hourly rates for a developer ranges for $15 to $75 per hour depending on the location of the developer. Since the rate of living is higher in the developed world the pricing of a developer based there would be more than the one based in a developing country. Similarly hiring a big agency for your project will cost a lot more, because they will take a higher cut in the profit and incorporate their huge infrastructure cost into the project. Most of the time they also outsource their projects to the developing countries.

3. If it’s too good to be true, then you should rethink…

On the other hand you might have a student or a freshmen offering to work at much lower than $15 per hour, but might end up taking up much longer time to do the same job, and you will end up paying more for a substandard quality of work. The freshman might not even be able to complete the project!

4. Location of the Developer

So if you want to work on a project, opting for someone living in a developing country is a much more cost efficient option, but you must ensure that the developer you are going to work has a the experience that is required. You can do that by looking at their portfolio, ask for a sample project or check out their earlier projects.

5. What about deciding the cost upfront?

You might want to decide the cost of the project upfront, and that makes a lot of sense. You don’t know how much you are going to end up paying at an hourly rate, and you want to make sure that you don’t end up overpaying for the project. But again you don’t know how much you need to pay for the project. So you end up paying to the lowest bidder. Guess What! It was a student, and you might end up with a subpar and extremely delayed project.

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6. So how can you decide the right developer?

You can look at the portfolio of the developer, and ask them to prepare a draft for your project. After analyzing your project, the developer will prepare a draft detailing all the aspects of your project, the time it will take to complete every single task, and justify the cost of every single phase of the development process. To understand different phases you can read our blog post explaining the budget breakdown.

7 .Good Agencies vs Unreliable Developers

If you can differentiate between a good company/agency and an unreliable developer/start-up, half of your work is done. You can trust someone if:

1. They analyse the scope of the project and develop a plan that can be taken up explaining the reason behind every single decision.
2. Draft all the features and their interactions with each other before starting the project.
3. A detailed presentation indicates the clarity of vision of the developer which translates into a smoother workflow.

8. But… What the cost will be?

This is a very ambiguous question, and depends entirely on your project. One of the easiest solution is to pay on hourly basis. If you want to know the cost upfront, then the best option is to decide the maximum budget, and then contact various companies for their proposals. You might be tempted to offer the project to the lowest bidder, but awarding the project to the company with the most detailed proposal is definitely a better option.

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9. Can Sofyrus Technologies do it for you?

If you have any project in mind, you can write to us at [email protected] and we will present a detailed proposal explaining every feature that your project might need and the amount of time required to complete the project. Our experts will contact you and present before you multiple possible solutions to your requirements, and you can chose from them.