Website cost estimate

[Durbs]

I'm not much into website design so when a friend asked me this question I thought I would throw it over here for some educated views:-

My friend is looking to have a website built, just the usual few pages with some flash. He wants it to look professional and also to provide a user specific experience - by which simply he means that each user can sign up and have their own personal page show up (I'm guessing it will be like an order/inventory type of page).

I know it's a very open question - but approximately how much would this cost him to have built, and then to have it hosted?

Its the bit above though thats gonna be 90% of the cost. I'd do the other bits for £500 + 25/year hosting. But its the dynamic part that needs to be properly explained before a half decent estimate can be supplied.

Amount of times i've specced a site for a client along the lines of "just a few pages with pictures to advertise my company, nothing fancy" only to give a price and then hear "Great, yes i'll go for that, oh yeah, can it also do everything that Amazon does, is that included too?".

[Fred Bloggs]

I certainly do, first whiff of a flash site and its <-- Back for me. Detest them.

Me too. I never view a Flash website. Horrid things they are.

[DimPrawn]

Me too. I never view a Flash website. Horrid things they are.

WHS. Flash on the page, click back.

[minestrone]

Just picked a chap to do my plan B site design on rentacoder, for 12 dynamic pages the chap pitched 1400 dollar.

There were some total spuds pitching for the role "I am a c# developer from India, we do job for 500 dollar"