Price of an upgrade from V6 - V8 £££

[Haydock Music]

All please help!

This is a question i have to ask as i am confused and therefore would like to ask for clarity from some people who would know better than i would:

Situ:
I recently upgraded my software from V6 to V8 and asked a friend (who is a progammer) to help me with the upgrade as she is a desginer. She told me at the outset that she would charge £60 per hour to which i agreed.

The Outcome.
After three weeks of work she presented me with a bill for 120 hours of work resulting in a total price of £7200. i was totally shocked at this and didnt realize that it would take such a long time.

The Question:
Should it take such a long time to upgrade if you are a programmer (no products as i do that) and is this a fair price? if not how much and how long should it take?

Please let me know your thoughts asap as i have to nail this soon!

kind regards
Alistair

[Duncan Rounding]

That equates to about three weeks work (120 hours). I don't believe anyone can judge that's too much or not without knowing exactly what was done.

That said, you could have got a completely new design done for that - with plenty of change.

EDIT: If it's your music site then it looks like it was (and is) a standard theme both in v6 (from web.archive.org ) and in v8 with a few new graphic etc.

[pinbrook]

Good Grief.....

that sounds excessive, did the programmer know actinic before taking on the job? or have you had to pay £60 ph for them to learn it?

The upshot is you will have to negotiate a solution you are both happy with. You agreed to the hourly rate, but equally for the programmer to rack up a £7200 bill without telling you is reckless

If you are looking for a sensible ball park figure AFAIK most developers in this forum would quote something in the region of £1000 - £2000 for an upgrade inc redesign (redesign is often cheaper than upgrade inc old design)

[RuralWeb]

If you are looking for a sensible ball park figure AFAIK most developers in this forum would quote something in the region of £1000 - £2000 for an upgrade inc redesign (redesign is often cheaper than upgrade inc old design

Agreed - the price you have been charged is excessive IMO. Even the most complex upgrade I have done came nowhere near this (wish it did!) - I would even go so far as to say that the price jo quotes should include the price of the V8 (Client) software as well.

[NormanRouxel]

If your site is haydockmusic.co.uk and there's nothing you're not telling us, then I too can confirm that it's pretty much an out of the box Actinic V8site using the Smart theme.

Indeed it's not a very up-to-date Actinic as it's 8.5.0.0.0.0 HBKA which is 8 months old and there have been 3 updates since then (not counting todays latest update).

I think that I could get a V8 site working to that look from a V6 Snapshot in about half a day. What else that could have been done that takes 14 additional 8 hour days is beyond me.

UPDATE. About 15 minutes to create a new site, switch to the Smart theme, colourise it as per your one and install the header image. See attached.

[RuralWeb]

I too can confirm that it's pretty much an out of the box Actinic V8site using the Smart theme.

Oh dear - even using the default upgrade site in V8 would have produced a far better site than this in about 15 minutes.

[NormanRouxel]

The logo is a rather a nice PNG with alpha channels around the visible stuff so that it will blend into any background. Guess the cost of that should be figured in. Say £100 - £200.

[RuralWeb]

she presented me with a bill

Dont pay it - she has NOT done a satisfactory job. Try upgrading the site yourself as you may be surprised if you let V8 do the job for you.

[RuralWeb]

The logo is a rather a nice

Looking at the old V6 site I think the logo there looks much better and the site in general looks better.

Comparing the new site with the old one it has not been "upgraded" (upgraded means converting to V8 while maintaining the original design) what has happened is that the site has been put through the V8 upgrader and a standard V8 theme applied - something you could have done yourself quite easily.

[leehack]

Daylight Robbery. However, i am very surprised you let anyone take a variable on the costs and asked for no indication. You are just asking for trouble, and boy did it find you.

I would tell her to stick it personally, it's one thing being charged an excessive amount and getting a great result. But when you are charged way over the odds and get total junk, that's just a sickener.

[Haydock Music]

re Price

Ok, so i am now feeling very very sad, someone said it was total junk and i have been ripped off, although i have not paid anyting yet! I would be very surprised if this person is dishonest, i feel i can trust her and have since had contact from her about the situation (£7k odd)!

I have now got it down to around the £2300 mark but since i am being told that it is junk should i be paying this. At the end of the day i am only able to display products via the software which i enjoy as i am musician who runs a music shop, not a computer or web desginer!

So in short:

Original Price £7200
Now £2400.00
Site is being slated apart from graphic which someone charged me £125 for?

What should i do?

URL www.haydockmusic.co.uk

Best regards and greatly appreciated guys!

Alistair

[RuralWeb]

Now £2400.00

Still rubbish IMO - £250 max if you really want to pay her but as I said the V8 upgrader would have given you a better site for free.

[Mike Hughes]

You really need to get a grip on yourself.

Ask for a breakdown of the hours worked. What was done when on what aspect of the site.

If all you asked for was an update to V6 then you didn't need a programmer/designer. There is a large learning curve on V8 but there shouldn't have been a need to learn it unless you were asking for design work to be done.

If all that was done was an update of the website then you can't complain about the design as there was no design element of the work.

You've got yourself into a hole, but it's a hole of your own making and you need to be clear on what you asked for, what you got, and what any discrepancies (if any) there are.

There's always room for negotiation but the idea is to find a settlement you're both happy with, Not run scared because of what some people here think about your site.

Mike

[leehack]

What should i do?

Build costs cut by 33% in one day? Says everything for me.
Hang on for another week and she might owe you.
You should pay a £1,000 IMO, learn a big lesson and then contact someone who knows what they are doing.

Ultimately you will end up with a site that costs you £1k more than it should have done, but you have a big part of that blame to shoulder.

Research, research and research and for heavens sake never give anyone a variable they can charge you, that's just madness. There is no need to have variables, anyone who knows what they are doing can give you a fixed quote to within a few hundred quid at the very worst.

[los_design]

All please help!

Situ:
I recently upgraded my software from V6 to V8 and asked a friend (who is a progammer) to help me with the upgrade as she is a desginer.

WHICH ONE IS SHE?

PROGRAMMER OR DESIGNER, they are a world apart in job spec??