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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

Thats not a ballpark figure thats an estimate. A ballpark figure should be within magnitude. That way the client can decide if they want to pursue the project at all. It's just a spread so someone that doesn't have any knowledge has realistic figures to work with.

If someone asks for a basic 3-page site I can ballpark it to $500. Most likely it will be less, sometimes it will be higher. If they ask for an iOS app I can ballpark and say $5000. If it's $1000 we're in the ballpark. $10000 and we're still in the park.

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The problem is, frequently even an order of magnitude isn't even enough. For instance, a high profile 3 page site that has a large number of daily visitors (or a product launch). Since the cost of getting something wrong on this may be so high, you need to get things right. This involves numerous rounds of usability testing, often multiple different comps, load testing, etc. It's totally reasonable for the budget of a 3 page site to cost upwards of $50k.

On the flip side, an order of magnitude may be too much. Your example ballpark for an iOS app, to me at least is easily already off by an order of magnitude. The _minimum_ I could reasonable expect an iOS app to cost would be $50k, and if we're shooting for an order of magnitude, I'd have to say $500k, which could be $50k on the low end or $5m on the high end. That's a pretty huge range of prices. Almost not even worth giving a ballpark at that point.

> The problem is, frequently even an order of magnitude isn't even enough.

"$500 if it's just a 3-page site, but if you expect a large number of visitors, it can easily jump to $10,000 to $50,000 when all is said and done. Sounds like you have an interesting project with lots of variables. Let's talk more."

With one bit of information ("I want to have an iOS app") you probably can't give a reasonable estimate. But you always have more information. Be it because the prospect already told you what kind of app they want, or just because they know what kind of apps you make - the very fact they're in your office provides additional information.

Those are all simple examples. If someone wants a CRUD app thats different than a ride sharing app which is different from a messaging app.

I think we can all agree the floor to make an app is fairly low. Most are simple webviews that point to a single URL.

Well, there is a spectrum. If you're talking shitty, basic MVP, you could do that in $10K.

"How many zeroes are we talking here?"

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