7 ms·

Is it me or do I find $32,000 for that website a bit too much?

bhousel 15y ago
Pay attention MySpace, because this is what you could have been: The go-to spot on the internet for artists who just want to pay some money for a personal website where they can put up their shit and sell it and not worry about the details.
tempire 15y ago
Indeed. I thought the same thing, but I suspect he's including a design firm that tested out multiple versions of the site, backend infrastructure to handle potential load, support to handle issues in a timely manner should they come up, and maybe his personal time.
- jmonegro 15y ago
  When you put it that way, sounds about right.
lukev 15y ago
Of course you or I could do it for cheaper. But for someone without particular technical skills to contract to a good, reliable company, spec it out, and produce a solid product at market rates on a reasonable timeline? 32k seems about right.
lukifer 15y ago
design, e-commerce, login/registration, authorized downloads, streaming, social integration, CMS (I assume), probably analytics, and who knows what on the back-end. A little on the high side, and possibly not using the latest and greatest platform(s), but I wouldn't say unreasonable.
ookblah 15y ago
Why are all the downvotes on comments relating to the website cost? I thought it was pretty high as well when I read that, I mean sure you pay much more for peace of mind, but that's like a 100% markup. And the red on black text wasn't a great choice IMO.
- wpietri 15y ago
  Because those comments are pretty much content-free. "That large number! It's large! Since I, as a non-expert, can't imagine spending that much, the people involved must be idiots!" If there were a comment from somebody who had built a similar site breaking down hours and dollars spent, that would be fine.
dashr 15y ago
Wonder if he is including the S3 costs in there?
lemieux 15y ago
His site makes my eyes bleed.
- lemieux 15y ago
  Tell me you can stare at this site more than one minute. Red on black is not the good choice.
jrockway 15y ago
It seems pretty inexpensive to me. Designing a site where people can log in, pay actual currency for a file, and download it a few times is not trivial. We may be able to do stuff like this ourselves over the weekend, but Louie can't, and so he had to pay someone to do it. And when you pay for something like this you're paying for things like the company's reputation, support "forever", and the right to say things like "can you move that 1 pixel to the left"?
- wmeredith 15y ago
  Your weekend project also doesn't lose you a quarter of a million dollars if it goes down for a few days. There is a big difference between tinkering and building a product.
aaReese 15y ago
For that price the design should look more modern. With even a $2000 design budget you could create a 3 page site that looked 10x better than that.

Pay attention MySpace, because this is what you could have been: The go-to spot on the internet for artists who just want to pay some money for a personal website where they can put up their shit and sell it and not worry about the details.

tempire 15y ago

Indeed. I thought the same thing, but I suspect he's including a design firm that tested out multiple versions of the site, backend infrastructure to handle potential load, support to handle issues in a timely manner should they come up, and maybe his personal time.

jmonegro 15y ago
When you put it that way, sounds about right.

lukev 15y ago

Of course you or I could do it for cheaper. But for someone without particular technical skills to contract to a good, reliable company, spec it out, and produce a solid product at market rates on a reasonable timeline? 32k seems about right.

lukifer 15y ago

design, e-commerce, login/registration, authorized downloads, streaming, social integration, CMS (I assume), probably analytics, and who knows what on the back-end. A little on the high side, and possibly not using the latest and greatest platform(s), but I wouldn't say unreasonable.

ookblah 15y ago

Why are all the downvotes on comments relating to the website cost? I thought it was pretty high as well when I read that, I mean sure you pay much more for peace of mind, but that's like a 100% markup. And the red on black text wasn't a great choice IMO.

wpietri 15y ago
Because those comments are pretty much content-free. "That large number! It's large! Since I, as a non-expert, can't imagine spending that much, the people involved must be idiots!" If there were a comment from somebody who had built a similar site breaking down hours and dollars spent, that would be fine.

dashr 15y ago

Wonder if he is including the S3 costs in there?

lemieux 15y ago

His site makes my eyes bleed.

lemieux 15y ago
Tell me you can stare at this site more than one minute. Red on black is not the good choice.

jrockway 15y ago

It seems pretty inexpensive to me. Designing a site where people can log in, pay actual currency for a file, and download it a few times is not trivial. We may be able to do stuff like this ourselves over the weekend, but Louie can't, and so he had to pay someone to do it. And when you pay for something like this you're paying for things like the company's reputation, support "forever", and the right to say things like "can you move that 1 pixel to the left"?

wmeredith 15y ago
Your weekend project also doesn't lose you a quarter of a million dollars if it goes down for a few days. There is a big difference between tinkering and building a product.

aaReese 15y ago

For that price the design should look more modern. With even a $2000 design budget you could create a 3 page site that looked 10x better than that.