Hello everyone, I know i may not be posting in the correct forum however as this is simply an question and not an service im paying for atm so id thought i would post it here. I am currently working on an Pay-Per-Download website however i am in need of an programmer to integrate the AdscendMedia API which would pretty much consist of an popup modal with the offers inside. Reason i'm asking for the cost of this is because i've been to sites like Freelancer/GetACoder and i've either ended up being scammed or they would overcharge ($250+) for something which i was told by an professional programmer himself would take only 10-20mins... Would appreciate it if someone could let me know, Thanks!
Nothing in programming takes 10-20 minutes. It takes about an hour to read the documentation. It takes about an hour or so to code it. It takes about an hour or so to test it to make sure it works. It takes time to upload it on the server It takes time to set it up on your server. It takes time to talk to you about changes etc. All in all $250.00 or more is more than acceptable if you want a good solid person to do this for you, and not have to deal with little script kiddies. I charge between $25.00 to $100.00 an hour for programming depending on the complexity of the work and not working with that API before I would have to invest time in reading the documentation, so I would charge about $65.00 or so an hour with a minimum of 6 hours for the work. I'm just being honest.
FCM is not only being honest, he's being more than reasonable. Without first seeing the site and the API (and analyzing them, which would take an hour or a few), there's no way to actually give you an estimate. It could take a total of 6 hours, but I'd guess (and it's just a wild guess based on decades of experience) that it's going to take a little more than that to get well-tested efficient code. $250 for that job - done correctly - is a Christmas present for you. Why not give the job to that "professional programmer" to do in 20 minutes? Or even in half an hour? Surely he can find half an hour free in his busy schedule? (I'd wait until the code was on your site and working before paying him anything, though - he sounds like one of those "pay me $50 up front and the rest when it's finished" people - who can live on $50 for a couple of weeks, and will.)
ngxweb, if you're that good I'll hire you. The average professional programmer can't do more than about $100 of work in an hour. (The fact that Red Hat and Cisco pay a lot more than that only means that they hire only the very best.) Unless you mean that a you know a "professional programmer" who charges his clients $1,000 for what he can produce in 10-20 minutes. But that's not programming, that's grand larceny.
Is your modification worth $1,000? I doubt it. (Is the app itself worth $1,000? I doubt that too. But you're not getting paid for the app, you're getting paid for the modification.) Adding "the end" to War and Peace doesn't make you Tolstoy.