General rule: the more effort some work requires – the more it costs. The same goes with the website development. The more hours some software development requires – the more money it will cost.
There are two main things that you have to take into consideration: the amount of work that has to be done (hours of work) and the cost of that work per hour. As we discussed in our previous article, the amount of work depends on the goal that the website is created to achieve. If you’d like to calculate the approximate amount of time required exactly for your website – please read our previous article.
Let’s start by describing the main web-development specialties and calculating the approximate budget you might need to allocate for the project. First, we will look at the key positions responsible for the development process: software developer, designer, and QA (quality assurance).
A software developer is a person who does actual website development. It is the only position that can’t be removed or substituted by any other. Software developer salary depends on the specialty (programming language/development platform), years of experience, and location. It can start from 1$/hour and vary up to 100$/hour. 1$/hour is the salary of a trainee software developer in a poor country. 100$/hour is a salary of a senior/lead software developer with vast experience living in New York/Los Angeles/London, etc. The average salary of a qualified English-speaking software developer living in not expensive city/country will fall into the range of 30-50$/hour. A such developer is usually experienced enough to: manage the project themselves, create some basic design on their own and perform their work with no issues (can deal with quality assurance). Less experienced developers will cost less but you’ll require other specialists in your team in order to complete the work smoothly.
Designers are responsible for making your website attractive for the target audience. They should also make sure that interface and experience at the website are user-friendly. Just like it is for developers, designers’ rate can vary from 1$ to 100$/hr. but in average, their work costs around 25% less. Good designer will cost you 20-40$/hour. Designer is required for more complex solutions with rich interface and is in charge for system usability. So in general, they are responsible for how users feel while they are on the website.
Quality assurance doesn’t require as much special knowledge as development and design do. That’s why their rates are usually twice lower than developers’. QA engineer with rate of 15-25$/hr is usually enough. Also, QA work usually includes part of manager tasks as well (checking that everything is fixed on time, understanding all the business requirements to make sure that user experience is on high level, etc.). QA are the last people to check the website before the client sees it. The more management work they do, the larger their rate will be. So sometimes it is better to hire skilled QA with higher rate than junior QA and a manager to control the team.
In previous parts of this article we mentioned that any specialist involved in the process of website creation can fully or partially do management tasks as well. Usually, this relates to self-management and minor management processes. Eventually, no big project can exist without professional management that coordinates all the processes inside it. Let’s figure out how important proper management can be and how much it will cost you. First of all, the project manager is the key role in the project with the most responsibility. It means controlling all parts of the projects and all people, making sure that everything is synergized and optimized for the fastest achievement of the goal. Managers are not a must-have in case there is an experienced small team that is capable of operating and working independently. In that case, management can be done by the developer/designer/QA personally. Management includes constant collaboration with the client, gathering requirements, translating business language into the technical language for other members of the team, being a shield between the team and the customer, etc. Usually, the manager’s rate is approximately the same as the developer’s one but there is no limit to their salaries. So, if you have large- scale project, it is possible to find a manager that will handle it for 40-50 $ per hour.
There are also other specialties like Business Analysis, QA automation, Security engineering, Scrum masters, etc. We described the most common and valuable ones. As you see, the cost of the project depends on its complexity. Depending on the complexity different experts with different skills must be hired. Team size can vary from one person up to dozens and hundreds. In general, simple websites can be done by one developer with a rate of 30-50$/hour. If the project takes 40 hours it will cost 1200-2000$. If it takes only 20 hours – it will cost 600-1000$. The basic landing page can be done even for 100-300$. Larger projects usually require at least 1 designer, 1 QA, and a couple of devs. Such projects will cost you 5000$ and more.
If you need some precise calculations for the software development cost, especially for your idea, please, contact us. We will be happy to at least consult you totally for FREE about your idea.