[webarch-websites] https://webarch-dev.host1.webarch.net/

[Mark Nielsen]

I second Jonathans ideas about trying to find good ways of communicating
that Webarch doesn't compete on cost or 24/7 availability - Webarch's
strengths are in ethical support of positive projects, and having a
personal relationship with a helpful human being, rather than 3rd tier call
centre staff.

FWIW, thought I'd share personal/subjective thoughts on costing...

On cost, I think Webarch are generally good. *A lot* of work was done on
costings a couple of years ago, including market research and costs
analysis.  The aim was to charge as little as possible to be competitive
whilst still trying to cover our costs.  From what I remember, there was
not much flexibility to go any cheaper.  The costings spreadsheets I worked
on should still be available if you want to revisit them.

Speaking as a Webarch client, I find Webarch's hourly rate to be
*extremely* competitive - about £45/hour I think? Compared with £90+/hour
from other sysadmin/development companies/agencies.  Coupled with the low
minimum charge for co-op members, that should be a big selling point.

I find Webarch's server costs to be a bit too high for me as a small
development firm.  I've got two VMs with Gandi which are about half the
cost for the same resources, and am likely to move more sites to Gandi and
downsize my Webarch VM as soon as I can get around to it.  I don't think
there's much Webarch can do about this. Gandi has economies of scale
Webarch can't compete with, and they have technologies which allow me to
scale my VMs up and down myself without needing tech support. I also have
enough sysadmin knowledge to be mostly self-sufficient - so I'm not typical
of Webarch's target hosting market, I don't think.

Don't know if any of that's helpful info, but there it is :)

M.


On 20 November 2014 10:21, Nick Hardiman <nick at internetmachines.co.uk>
wrote:

> No-one should think WA is expensive. What's the cost of the average web
> agency or design studio - £100/hour or more? We can fix that.
>
> Lack of 24/7 support is scary. The internet is always on. Do you have
> enough people for a call-out rota (at least 5)?
>
> Security can be highlighted in the ethics section. I like that.
>
>
>
> On 20 Nov 2014, at 09:35, jonathan at webarch.net wrote:
>
> A couple of quick hurried thoughts about the website - more on content/how
> we work
> Sorry I'm not up to date with discussion  hope this doesn't cover old
> ground...
>
> 1. I have noticed one or two potential customers going away becasue they
> perceived we're (a) expensive (b) not offering 24/7 support:
> I wonder whether we should tackle this head-on by stating we don't try to
> compete on price with corporate forces, we value work-life balance, we
> don't offer 24/7 but respond ASAP to emails, and we have almost no
> complaints about our service etc.
>
> 2. Re doing a blog: I write 700 words a month it takes me between 5-10
> hours, to do something decent, conscientious, researched, written in plain
> English, and hopefully worth reading.
> I couldn't write alone about the areas Webarchitects would cover but
> instead after a group discussion I could go away and turn something into an
> article.
> How long's a typical blog? They vary a lot, but the point is that several
> hours work for a blog posting worth circulating is a kind of investment in
> longer-term consciousness raising, alongside promoting our services, but
> it's not a small commitment. It's the equivalent of at least a day's work,
> maybe two. Can we spare that? I hope so. Perhaps if we aimed at one a month
> ... ?
>
> In a rush
> Jonathan
>
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