How much would you charge to setup / host a Geeklog site?

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 21 2003 @ 10:20 PM EDT

What do you mean by host a site for a year with no bandwidth charges? Are you trying to sell disk space on a personal server to others and want to get a feel for what hosts normally charge? Or are you looking for someone to host your Geeklog site? Or are you looking for what someone would charge to maintain the software on the site for a year with disk/bandwidth coming from somewhere else?

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Authored by: andyofne on Monday, April 21 2003 @ 10:42 PM EDT

Set up one geeklog site: $250 (it's been sort of difficult for me and sometimes I have to do it twice, but then, why would you pay me to do it if I'm so stupid?)

Maintain for 1 year: depends.
Upgrades to geeklog: $100 per
General activity: $50 per mo
Help with themes, content, etc: $25 per hour

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 12:41 AM EDT

$250 for an install? Well then, Dirk and the others should charge at least $20 per answer to people's questions here.

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Authored by: andyofne on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 11:50 PM EDT

are you expecting FREE?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 01:10 PM EDT

Im not charging for bandwidth b/c I dont pay for it, and traffic is very minimal. Im just wondering what to charge for setup and maintenance of geeklog and the hosting the domain (DNS / MAIL ), and 1 year support.

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Authored by: vinny on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 02:26 PM EDT

I think a standard 'install' charge is usually in the range of $20-$50 with some people charging as much as $150 (and even more, as seen in the comment above). This is ususally for just a vanilla instlall, no custome themes or anything.

As for support, it depends on what you mean by support. This could range (for one year) anywhere from $0 to $100,000+ depending on what support you're providing. If you're just providing support to make sure the hosting machine doesn't crash, probably this should be < $50. If you're providing assistance in case of normal, minor geeklog errors (parse errors that crop up, etc.), I'd say < $100 or better yet just charge by the hour ($50/hr, 1 hr min). If you're support includes full geeklog development/hacking/custom themeing/etc then you should charge the big bucks (yearly salary).

So please, when you ask a question like this, be specific. 'Support' means a lot of different things to different people.

-Vinny

P.S. If you want to pay me to provide support to you send an email. I'll also supply business consulting services on how much to charge for different 'support' services for a modest fee. :)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 03:53 PM EDT

If you use andyofne's rates, you will price yourself right out of the market. Probably the only ones who would ever pay that much are businesses. I doubt many of them would want to be on someone's personal server. Based on your posts, I'm making the assumption this t is what you are running. So, you're looking at small fries -- high school/college kids, website hobbiests, etc -- people who would be willing to pay $5 - $10 per month. Most hosts will give 200 Megs - 1 Gig for this price range with bandwidth ranging from 0.5 Gig to 50 Gigs.

Geeklog Installation/Major Mod Install: $25-$50 each. Maintenance/customization: $25/hour. Small fries may not want even to pay these rates. If you want to go after the business world so you can charge more, then you really need a server in a data center not your home. I do not recommend putting a dollar figure on a year's maintenance agreement unless the client specifies exactly what his needs are. He could easily take advantage of this and ask for different software to be customized or integrated which isn't already. You could run into unforseen problems taking days or weeks to solve. You would have no choice but to do the work at what could end up as slave wages.

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Authored by: andyofne on Tuesday, April 22 2003 @ 11:54 PM EDT

I have never charged anyone to either set up any kind of geeklog, phpnuke, postnuke, or phpbb site / package.

I did, however, offer some ideas. As pointed out above you can pay a lot of money for difference services.

But then again, that's not what I'm in business to do... if it was my business, I would definately have some fee schedule set up and wouldn't do it for free.

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Authored by: vbgunz on Wednesday, April 23 2003 @ 05:27 AM EDT

I say who ever wishes to take Geeklog and make money from it, give back a small percentage or what ever you see fit back to the developers. Just make it honest...

If you don't you just might be in business for short term success. I plan on making money too from varying services in regards to Geeklog and not to brown nose or win a doggie bone I feel it is important if not vital I give back in a residual fashion...

I say this because its cool to make money from open source but if you don't help to keep it open source what happens when they close it up due to lack of funds? These creators have to eat too...

I would hate to build a US$10,000 a month empire, stay greedy and lose everything in one year... Ask me and I'll be happy making US$1,000 a month for ten years... Long term is the smartest term for me...

I do not see anything wrong with charging 250 an install, just if you do please donate back a fair cut (not 5 dollars)... Everyone knows who've installed Geeklog countless times it can literally take up to just 5 minutes to get running...

Please just give back or know it might all be in vain... Good luck :)

---
Victor B. Gonzalez

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