Web development offer - price, quality, deadline
Smaller development units (called a function; module; component; feature; and many other names) will be referred to as a feature in the article.
Unfortunately, in most cases, the most important factor in deciding between offers is the price. - But what features does an offer includes?
If you’re requesting a quote for a specific feature list, probably those features will be on the offer list with their prices. These features are well-defined, separable development blocks that can be expanded later, if necessary.
Understandably, but still unfortunately, the most pressing aspect when choosing between bids is the amount. If one of two companies (apparently) would develop all the features for the same amount of money the other only would develop only half of them for the same money which company would you choose?
Think before you answer "The first one, for sure"! You can pay its price in the future. Cheapness has its downsides in all areas ... There are many twists and side functions to keep in mind when developing features of your application, and those little but more important features won’t be made if quality comes last.
If you want to develop a user registration and the corresponding login (with an email address), the following unsolicited, but still indispensable and completely obvious functions could to be implemented (should be implemented):
- user database structure design (mandatory)
- registration form (mandatory)
- form validation on both the client side and the server side (mandatory)
- confirm email address after registration (basic)
- ban after X failed login attempt (recommended)
- forgot password / password reminder (basic)
- filter out fake users (robots) (recommended)
- manage user groups (optional)
- manage user statuses (recommended)
Pitfalls of development offers
If you get an offer that you think is too high, or that you think contains too few features compared to the price, don’t be afraid to ask why it has so many or why only those features are included in it!
Ask the followings:
- what closely related developments does the offer include?
- what additional costs can this development entail that you are not yet aware of?
- what features are not yet planned that are absolutely necessary?
- will any optimization be required after the development is complete or is it already included in the price?
The cheapest solution is never the best, quality comes at a cost in every area and you have to decide how much the quality of your development / website / application is worth to you. There is the golden mean in IT development area too, which, together with the necessary related developments, means good quality and a good price for both parties. And a suspiciously cheap offer or too short a deadline (in the case of a properly submitted list of claims) can hide pitfalls, don’t be afraid to suspect and ask!
Author: Istvan Dombi
I work on IT development area since 2010, I had luck ever since to work on from simple corporate websites to e-commerce platforms and various API integrations (payment gateways and other third-party APIs) to complex international web applications. My main stack is backend development, within that PHP and GO languages.