FAQ
We’ve compiled some questions we’re often asked by existing and potential clients. If you’re curious about our services or how we do things have a read through: we may have already answered your question here.
- What is your hourly rate?
- What information do you need from me to develop my site?
- How will my project be developed?
- Where will my site be developed?
- Can you host and support our site too?
- What if I want to maintain the site myself?
- What if I want to host the site myself?
- Can I install other software/scripts on my site/server?
Hourly rates
Most of our work is individually specified, planned and invoiced. Our usual hourly rate for consultation is £20 per hour (per member of staff).
Getting started
Send us any design documents, notes, or sketches and we can discuss your project with you (by e-mail, instant messenger, phone or Skype) before writing a short, “bullet point” specification for your approval. If this initial specification is satisfactory, we will then agree on a estimated price (for fixed-price quotes) or an hourly rate with an estimated number of hours required.
We usually request 50% of design/development costs plus any hosting or domain name fees up front. For short projects, we request the remaining 50% upon completion of the project, but for long-term work (several months) we can split the costs up into smaller, regular payments.
Customers are able to securely log in and view regular “snapshots” of their site as it is being developed on our servers. This is great for those who are curious about how we work, or want to ensure that work is progressing at the desirable pace. Many customers also use this time to familiarise themselves with how the final site will work, and can begin adding their content to these snapshots in preparation for the live site.
Development servers
We normally develop sites on our own hardware for efficiency and security reasons before delivering it to you “boxed” and complete, or hosting it ourselves at the production stage. We will ensure that any functionality in our test environment is not impaired once the site is moved to its production-stage hosting.
This is not an absolute requirement, however, we’re happy to discuss working with other teams and on other development hardware.
Supported hosting
Hosting for your site is fully managed by ourselves and tailored to your needs. We’ll take care of domain names, e-mail addresses, site setup, server-side support, security fixes and website statistics as part of the service. Of course, you may take control of your own hosting (managing e-mail, statistics, etc) through our online control panel if you prefer.
The cost of this service varies depending on your individual support requirements and can be agreed on during the development. Support time can include fixes, minor changes and theme tweaks. Additional work over and above the ‘support quota’ for your plan may be invoiced at our discretion.
Non-supported hosting
Non-supported hosting plans are available and provided as is: there is no support. Clients have full access to all aspects of managing their site(s), including the hosting control panel for user and general account management, SFTP/SCP for file transfer, phpMyAdmin for database management and direct SSH access.
Please contact us for more information.
Third-party hosting
We can deliver the site “complete” (in your preferred format) or migrate the site from the development environment to the production server elsewhere.
We can work with other hosts, but will not usually be able to support the hosting side. We would also require appropriate access if we’re to support the site itself. Please contact us for more information.
Other software and scripts
Our shared, Drupal-optimised servers are designed to provide a secure working environment for our clients’ sites. We don’t introduce any new or untested software on these servers, and would suggest dedicated hardware for projects that are not Drupal-based.
