Website Development
Website costs vary wildly based on individual project requirements. Basic sites begin at $3,500. Small eCommerce, content marketing, and membership sites start at $10,000. Complex eCommerce and catalog sites start at $20,000. Expect to pay more for things like custom designed themes, more than 20 pages of content, thousands of products and special features.
As software consultants, we operate on a pay as you go system, or as they say in the industry: “Time and materials”. We start with an agreed upon Scope of Work. We then provide an initial estimate of the time and resources it will take to complete the project. With your direction and approval, we progress through the project providing you with regular updates. We invoice monthly for the hours worked in the prior month. We generally don’t fix bid, and we don’t require an upfront payment.
Today, even the simplest sites are no longer static. Software is constantly evolving and hackers never rest. Websites must be updated and backed up on a regular basis to prevent security issues and to provide optimum performance for your customers. Tempora can assist you in managing your software updates, maintenance, and backups. We offer discounted support package options upon request. Additionally, there are perpetual costs for web hosting, SSL certificates, and domain registration(s). As part of our service, we assist you in setting up these accounts, but you pay the providers directly.
A website hosting provider is a company that specializes in serving websites for its customers to the Internet. You sign up for a website hosting package through the hosting provider. They in turn give you specialized access to resources on one of their servers allowing you to store your website and serve it to the public. There are many web hosting service providers and the competition is fierce! But don’t worry, we will help you select the best provider for your situation. On a side note, we typically get discounted hosting prices through our partners that we can pass along to you.
Hosting prices are completely dependent on the size and complexity of your website and the number of people visiting your site each day. We’ve seen hosting prices as low as $5 per month. However, $25 per month for small sites is a good target price. Medium to large size sites with heavy peak traffic can be in the $100 per month range or higher.
In order for people to find your website on the Internet, you need to reserve a name that uniquely belongs to you. This name is called your domain name. Domain names end with a suffix such as .com, .info, and .org which help categorize your website appropriately. To ensure that only you own this name, there is an established network of domain registrars that keep track of this information for you. The domain registrar you select is called your domain hosting provider. Domain hosting providers make their money by charging a fee to insure that only you have the right to use this name across the entire Internet. They also facilitate things like transferring of ownership and translating your domain name into what’s called an IP address. An IP address is kind of like a phone number and looks something like: 12.234.56.78. IP addresses are a complicated but necessary component of the Internet which thankfully humans don’t need to know much about. You can switch your domain hosting provider to another registrar, but if you let your domain expire; you won’t own it any longer; your website will cease to function; and someone else can take your domain name from you! Sometimes, your domain registrar and your web hosting provider are the same company, but they don’t have to be.
As with everything else, it depends. Simple .com domains can be very affordable at $10 or $20 per year. Different registrars charge different amounts. Also, certain domains like .net, .co, and .biz may come with a higher price tag. People often buy each of them for their domain name to keep others from buying them and tricking their customers into going to a different site.
CMS stands for Content Management System. Websites are frequently built using a CMS platform so that website owners do not have to know how to write code to change the content on their own website. In theory, this reduces the need for outside webmasters, thus reducing the cost associated with maintaining a website. There are many CMS platforms to choose from, however, WordPress, is by far the most popular. WordPress is open source, and has thousands of third party plugin developers adding a wide variety of functionality to the core product.
We create many of our sites using the popular WordPress platform for basic business brochure sites to more complex e-commerce and Content Marketing websites. For medium, to large e-commerce sites, we tend to use Magento and BigCommerce. We’re always looking to see what’s on the horizon, so if you have a particular platform you would like us to use, give a call to learn more about our experience with your choice.
Fortunately, saying goodbye doesn’t have to be difficult, and we make this process as easy as possible. During the development process, we set up supporting third-party provider accounts and make purchases for things like your domain name in your name. Should our paths ever diverge we will cheerfully provide you with a comprehensive list of links and passwords to your website admin and all of its supporting accounts.
Are you curious about something we haven’t answered? Contact us today. We’ll be happy to answer your question.
We can help you create a new look for your website! We’re happy to make minor design changes like swapping out images, or changing theme colors, or altering fonts to your existing website as part of your support plan.
However, a complete re-design takes longer than the time allotted for any of our monthly Support packages. If you’re interested in a re-design for your website, contact us today. Initial consultations are always free.
Absolutely! We’re primarily WordPress and Magento designers and systems integrators. That means we always attempt to find a developed plugin to accommodate the additional functionality you need. In rare cases, when an existing WordPress or Magento plugin just won’t do, we can develop the functionality in-house. If you’ve struggled to find the right plugin, reach out! Initial consultations are always free.
We are happy to assist you with any plugin purchase, installation, and configuration. All premium plugins are purchased in your name, on your account, and with your credit card. Premium plugins belong to you and your site; not your web developer!
WordPress and Magento Support
Absolutely not! Your personal information is very important to us and we diligently work to keep all of your personal information safe. We do not share or sell your information.
We are available to work on client support requests from 8:00 am until 6:00 pm Central time, excluding common US Holidays.
We encourage all forms of communication, and as such, you’re welcome to text, or call us any time at 832.912.7959. During business hours, someone will answer the phone or respond to your text message in a timely manner. Should it be necessary for you to leave a message, you will typically receive a response in less than 30 minutes.
We work diligently to speed up your site by implementing best practices for page load speed. But, ultimately, you’re at the mercy of the resources allocated to your site by your hosting provider.
If we determine that your current hosting package is inadequate, we’ll assist you with upgrading your current plan or switching you to another hosting provider. We recommend the best-in-class hosting services provided by WP Engine for WordPress sites. We are a WP Engine Partner (Click for a great offer!) and we’ll migrate your site(s) for you.
Assuming your hosting plan does not include a backup service, we install custom backup scripts on your website to perform routine backups. We will make a copy of your website daily, or weekly, depending upon the dynamic nature of your site. We also copy your website to our local backup server for redundancy and emergency restoration.
No, you do not have to sign a contract. However, when you purchase a support package, you’ll agree to our terms and conditions. Your Support Service is on a month-to-month basis.
We offer a 100% moneyback guarantee during the first month. If you’re not completely satisfied, just call us and we’ll gladly refund your money. Should you wish to cancel any time after your first month, we’ll happily support your site during your last month’s service.
Your support payment is set up as a recurring subscription within our system. As such, we do not store your credit card information on our website.
We use Stripe as our payment gateway. Your credit card information is stored and processed in Stripe. Stripe has been audited by a PCI-certified auditor and is certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1. This is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry.
Your first month trial subscription starts on the day you sign up. If you wish to continue support with us after your trial month, your subscription will renew on the same day each month thereafter.
If you are in your initial trial month, simply call us at 832.912.7959, and we will gladly process your request. Otherwise, you may log in to your account and submit your cancellation online. We’ll continue to support you through the remainder of your active support month.
Absolutely! We’re primarily WordPress and Magento designers and systems integrators. That means we always attempt to find a developed plugin to accommodate the additional functionality you need. In rare cases, when an existing WordPress or Magento plugin just won’t do, we can develop the functionality in-house. If you’ve struggled to find the right plugin, reach out! Initial consultations are always free.
Your credentials! We need to your login information for: 1. your hosting provider’s cPanel (or equivalency); 2. ftp and ssh access to your WordPress site; 3. Administrator access to your WordPress site.
If there are DNS issues to resolve, we may request login credentials for your Domain registrar. Finally, we may need access to any premium plugin providers.
Yes, if you’re referring to a staging or development site associated with your live site. We will extend support to up to three (3) sites total. Keep in mind, if we are applying updates to multiple sites, you’ll exhaust your support hours more quickly.
If you need support for multiple domains, with separate sites, then you’ll need to purchase a support plan for each domain you’d like maintained, updated, and supported.
Generally speaking, if your WordPress website is fairly static in nature and you occasionally require content or design changes to your site, then we recommend you start out with the Basic plan. You can always upgrade anytime and you’re getting a great discount of 33% off our regular development rate!
If you have a subscription or membership site, or your site has dynamic components to it, then we recommend the Professional plan. This plan allows ample time to make numerous changes and updates to your site throughout the month. It’s a 43% discount to our development rate!
If you’re running a medium to large WooCommerce catalog or eCommerce site, or have a large subscriber base, then we highly recommend you consider the Pro Plus plan. This plan offers 50% off our development rate and 15 hours of support time per month!
Should your time run out during the middle of the month, you have several options available to you. First, we’ll notify you when you are close to running out of time. You have the option to purchase an additional block of hours at your plan’s rate, or, you could tell us to put support on hold for the duration of your current month (backups will continue to occur). Lastly, you could upgrade your plan to the next level if you are consistently exceeding your plan’s support hours.
We bill our support time in .05/hour increments. This works out to be a minimum of 3-minute increments of time. We feel it’s only fair that you get the most from your WordPress support plan. Other companies charge upwards of 15 minute increments of time per request. We think that’s ridiculous!
Typical non-emergency support requests are completed within one (1) business day. We begin working on site-critical requests within an hour of notification.
During business hours, our support team is notified of new requests in real time. Non-emergency requests are handled in our support queue as they come in and are routed to the right person to complete your request. If your site is down, we begin work to restore service as soon as humanly possible.
Unfortunately not at this time. We currently offer our Support services to customer located within the USA.
If your WordPress website is already compromised when you sign up with us, we will work with you as best we can to restore your service. However, we do require an additional onetime fee of $149 to perform the cleanup. Depending upon the severity of the compromise, and the status of your backups, we may not be able to fully restore your site.
If your site is hacked as a current customer, we look to restore your site using a most recent clean backup. If that’s not possible, because you’ll lose too much data, we remediate the site manually to the best of our ability.