Originally Posted by Remix Hey there! I don't know, it was just an estimate. Personally I code all my pages my self so it's pretty hard to estimate what someone else would. I'm sure you could find someone to do it for 100USD, but it wouldn't be ready fast, and probally have a few errors, but if you have any knowlege with the language you could correct it.

$100 US would be a complete ripoff for a forum design+coding, css orianted design - the more graphics, the harder it is to work flawlessly through all browsers - and a cms. personally, doing it for free would be less patronizing than for $100.

how many hours do you think would go into that? first you have to design the forum skin. depending on the graphics/customization requirements that can range from 1-30 hours - you're designing everything, even down to the private messages. then, you have to implement it. i haven't tried a vb3, but vb2 was medicore. once you got the hang of it, it wasn't too hard, but the new ipb which seems like a direct cpy of vb3 was a complete nightmate, so i can imaging another 30 + for a complete implementation of a decent skin.

css is a tricky thing. it's simple to write and understand, but it has its quirks. things will display right in IE but not in FF and vise versa. then you have to take other browsers into consideration. if you don't spend your time checking updates in every browser you have as you build them - thus slowing your production time - you'll have to start over halfway through because there's no qick fix and it'd be the fastest route. There's another 5-10 hours per tamplate - not all pages have the same set up, some far completely different. for exampple, a portfolio page won't look like a services page, so there's @ least another 3-5 hours ontop of your original time.

then the ever loves cms. depending on the comlexity of it, it can go from a few hours to a few weeks. a full blown admin system with users and sessions and the complete deal could take a long time, unless you've got previous files you can recycle, so you'ree looking @ at least roughly 100 more.

if someone contracted yo for that, starting from screatch (no resued files) you're looking at the average of 100-175 hours depending on your knoweldge of each piece - IE php, css, html, photoshop, anything else.

so if you like working for $1/ hour or less, you can go charge $100 as a final price, but i'd feel less insulted if i just gave it away.

people need to know why they're charging what they are. $100 sounds like you just picked it out of your ass and put no real thought into it. as a client, i'd take my business elsewhere and i imagine most would also.