The 5k+ CMS Powered Website

Quality technology costs money - everyone knows that and for the most part, its true.  But there's a problem with the common "CMS Powered Website" - they are usually priced at a minimum of $5,000.00.  Why is this a problem? Because a CMS is supposed to make website development more rapid and more cost effective, not more expensive!

If a website design company is charging you several thousand dollars for a CMS powered website, you should ask the following questions:

• what is the cost breakdown between custom design, installation/configuration, implementing content, graphic work and extensions
• what extensions come stock standard?  The things you should be looking for relate to:
  • "easy management" - content editors, backup systems, image gallery creators
  • "features and tools" - online stores, forums, wikis, blogs, labels/tags
  • "cool features" - slideshows, rotators, tab pages and other 'good looking gimmicks'
• does the site cost include training so I can manage my own site?
• after the training, what parts of my site will I still have to learn? (some things can't really be 'taught' - you've just got to use them and learn over time)
• will I be given total administration control?
• can I complete a full website backup, including databases, without assistance?
• will you help me with setting up and configuring new email addresses? If so, is it an additional cost?

There's no hard and fast rule here, but getting a cost breakdown is critical.  Installing a CMS website should only take a couple of hours at most.  Installing and configuring extra items is another 1-3 hours (depending).  Implementing your content should not be an expensive item - the whole idea of the CMS is to make managing and updating content easy and fast.  We generally work on the idea that a "page" is going to take us approximately 10-15 minutes.  Sometimes it is 5 minutes, some times 20.  Either way - its not a big time cost per page.

If you don't get complete admin control (after paying your bill), then there's a serious problem.  You should always be able to manage and update your site entirely.  Super administrator access (ie: total access) will ensure that you can backup your entire site and move it, should you need to.  If you can't, and your website designer is not scrupulous, then you are potentially at risk being stuck with them.