So I’ve sweat and agonized over a proper estimate for my first client. A redesign of a medium-sized non-corporate website. The estimate covers organization of content for ease of navigation, custom template design for homepage and inside pages, a blog, and an event calendar. I also posed maintenance options: 1) keep the current content management system (Drupal); 2) replace Drupal with a hosted CMS, such as WaterCMS, 3) abandon CMS route and update by hand.
I took time for a thorough discovery of what the client like about the current site, what they wanted to change, and what they liked about other sites.
Two good things so far. The client has not, as of yet, not laughed in my face at my hourly rate. Also, they have not as of yet expressed a desire for ebay-level functionality for less than $5000.
That said, I may well have to revise schedule to meet a reporting deadline for the client. This could mean that I put together the blog first, then build the template and organize the rest of the site content. A little different, but doable.
Strategic Information Systems 
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Since you’re doing a web project by yourself (I assume, from your post), I suggest you take a look at this article: writing a proposal for a web project. Hope you’ll find it useful.