Creating Esitmates

[shandlon]

I wanted to see if anyone has a base for what they do with projects
that are being put in CMS and estimating the cost of doing so. I have
tried to use the base of an hour a page for the site knowing some
pages will take next to nothing as they are just a repeat of other
while the base pages and templates could take more. However, when we
get a site that has say 300 actual pages that scares people away from
doing a project. I know it is hard to say how much work it would take
as it depends on several things but, is an hour a page really a bad
guide?

[Richard Hauer]

Hi shandlon,

As with any CMS, it's more a factor of:
- complexity of creative (i.e. how much html/css/js; which browsers;
mobile?; IE6?; etc)
- number of page templates --> number of CMS templates (not a 1:1)
- abstraction of navigation from IA (the more abstract the more code you're
going to need to make it work; this is an exponential relationship)
- number and complexity of functional widgets (forms and the like - this is
the big ticket item)

The number of actual final pages is rarely a factor unless you're also
responsible for the Copy, in which case you should count on about a day per
page, presuming you're starting from scratch, once you have accounted for
draft/review/alter/approval.
No that's not a misprint, of course there will be some easy ones and some
harder ones, but on averages a day is about right.
Anyone who says it doesn't take that long has probably never done it before.

So to your example, a 300-page site could take between about 2 months and a
year in man-terms.

Regards,
Richard

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[Tony Gayter]

I would agree with Richard. as a base we would quote about 2 days per master template and a day or two for sub templates. adding on top of thatabout 1-2 weeks for project setup-install and what not. You need a decent requirements to do the navigation templating and then on top of that its time for any bespoke work (.net, php stuff), time for deployments etc.... Even for a fairly simple site (say 5 master templates, 10 subtemplates, navifation and a couple of .net forms), with any UAT and deplyment your looking at around 2-3 months, and thats before adding content (as thats usually done by the client).

[Daniel Petroff]

Hi shandlon

I agree with Richard and Tony. In any CMS its not the number of pages that the site consists of its the structure, number of templates, complexity, and functionality that determine the development time and therefore cost.

When it comes to templates it is a safe bet to work on 1 Day per Template (no matter how small it is - as there will be larger ones that will eat up all the built in fat).

This includes each CSS and Javascript as well as HTML.

Depending on complexity, add a couple of days for navigation build, a few (3-10) days for workflows, authorisations, deployment and testing, and a couple of days for support (you will be asked questions and asked for help after the handover so rather than try to bill at that stage - build this into your initial quote). Any additional functionality is hard to estimate without knowing what it is.

As for the content itself, well the whole point of a CMS is that the client does the content... So if you are required to do content then again Richard is right - it means Draft/Review/Correction/Approval/Release and this in all companies I worked with takes a long time (we are talking days, although several pages can be done concurrently)...

The key thing when working with the CMS is that once the templates are built and the project is rolled out a 100 page site can easily become 1000 page site in a matter of days at almost no extra cost (provided there is no requirement for new templates/functionality). A 300 page site that has only one page type will take 2 weeks to roll out. A 50 page site with 10 page types/layouts will take closer to a month...

Hope this helps.