Time Estimate for a Contract PHP/Mysql Web Application Job

Question

I'm debating contracting the development of a web application but don't want to insult a professionally experienced programmer with my budget if it's unrealistic.

Can someone with expertise here comment on how much time you'd spend or payment you would expect to program the following type of project from scratch?

Project is basically a job search/posting platform (not an aggregator). Site offers the basics: search, user profiles, saved searches, uploading documents etc. Job posters also create their own accounts, can search their expired postings, edit and post documents, search users, etc. Implementation of various third party APIs (Google, Citydata, etc).

Various modules of payment to select from, which dictate usage/posting privileges for employers.

Site would require a robust admin/backend for tracking and reporting.

Obviously there's a lot to consider for each component and it's overwhelming for a PHP novice like myself. Fortunately I'd cover the HTML, CSS and Javascript.

So I've got about $3K. Am I crazy?

Thanks.

/------ edit ----------- /

OK looks like I am crazy.

Taking my rookie learning curve into account, my own estimate was a 3 or 4 month window of solid programming for development to debugging to beta.

If given enough clear direction and organization (i.e the HTML already exists, the forms are already populated/labeled, all my SQL tables are id'd, labeled, and organized) that perhaps an expert coder could make easy work of making everything talk to each other. But even then at the $100-200 p/h range I'm outta luck.

Jobberbase is awesome, never would've thought an open source existed. This will probably save me, thanks!

Answer 1

$3K sounds pretty nuts to me ;-). An experienced developer in my country will charge you about $200 per hour. That's about 2/3 days of work. Only barely enough time to explain your ideas to the developer.

For comparison; I'm currently building a job classifieds platform with more than 10 developers for about a year. You do the math.

This question reminds me of the discussion about the costs of developing an iPhone app.

Answer 2

It would be hard to find someone experienced who would take the project at $3000. You may be tempted to send this project overseas, but I wouldn't recommend it - our company has worked with firms in India, Russia and other countries, but their quality of code is simply no where near the level of code here.

You could go with a Jr. Developer but I'm not sure he'd the experience for the payment gateway. $200/hour for a PHP developer is a lot - I know some people who make that, but I'm sure you can get a mid level developer for $40-50 hour.