"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get"

Recently I compared costs for a website design  and consequently rediscovered the wisdom of  a Warren Buffett  quote , "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."  Below are the five cost estimates I received for website design.

1. $799

2. $299

3. $2,000

4. $8,000

5. $18,000-20,000

 

Each website designer told me various reasons for their pricing. Ironically the ones with the highest price said they charged so much because their custom design would allow for nuances in color.

  Color? What kind of color costs an extra few thousand dollars?

Incredibly all of the site designers with costs over $799 told me they would not host the site nor update it.  So I get to have a really cool color and I get to maintain my own site if I simply pay you 10-100x what a local company will charge?

This wide price fluctuation is true for more than just website design.  A friend of mine was quoted $500 to fix a gap in a door jam. Instead she fixed it herself with some putty and a 2 x 4.  Total cost? About $3.

It's okay to pay a little more for something with great value to it. But does what your buying offer greater value to your life or does it just cost more money?  Remember what Ben Franklin said, "A fool and his money are soon parted." We are foolish when we pay big money and get little in return. Get value with whatever price you choose.

 

Comments

[monarch 1115]

The analyst firm RedMonk in general and Stephen O'Grady in particular do a lot of great analysis on software, open source and other tech issues. A recent post on the Microsoft Surface has some good examples of the firm's push the envelope thinking, in a nutshell software is waning and hardware is waxing.