Hi Koha people What are the average costs of a Koha install? There's plenty of discussion about buying library systems around the traps here, and I realised that there's no real 'throwaway' numbers out there to allow people to make a comparison with slickly-marketed paid systems... So, if anyone is happy to do so, would it be possible to grab a few rough numbers for things like initial installation and setup, and any ongoing maintenance? Along with the numbers, any relevant data that affects the cost would be useful - ie number of sites, number of records to be transferred, time it took to move from system X to koha... The whole aim is to be able to say 'well, for your average school library, it might cost something like $xxxx if you need an external contractor to install and configure things..' - before having to go through the quoting process. A couple of ballpark figures might be handy.. If people see a useful purpose for such data, I'll compile a set of average numbers and send it back for the FAQ... Cheers - and thanks! Adam.
Adam Steer said:
The whole aim is to be able to say 'well, for your average school library, it might cost something like $xxxx if you need an external contractor to install and configure things..' - before having to go through the quoting process. A couple of ballpark figures might be handy..
As Brooke pointed out, the install is relatively quick. But remember, Koha as installed won't do anything useful until you set your local parameters, and that can be a _very_ lengthy process. As with everything else, you get what you pay for. If you're paying a $20 hourly rate to someone who knows nothing about Koha, then you're going to spend a whole lot of money before you get what you want. It's far better to pay more per hour to someone who knows Koha and will spend fewer hours on your job. I would say the very _minimum_ rate in the US for someone who knows Koha should be $50 per hour. Expect to pay much more for a Koha "expert." So if you figure that setting the system parameters required "most of a weekend" for Brooke, the cost of setting up a library (where all the work was done by someone other than the library) could easily hit $1,000 or more, not including the cost of any new hardware. And that also doesn't include the cost of importing any records from an existing system... Which means this is a good time to once again make the point that free software is not free of charge -- unless you have the knowledge and time to do it all yourself. Stephen -- Stephen Hedges Skemotah Solutions, USA www.skemotah.com -- shedges@skemotah.com
Stephen Hedges wrote:
Adam Steer said:
The whole aim is to be able to say 'well, for your average school library, it might cost something like $xxxx if you need an external contractor to install and configure things..' - before having to go through the quoting process. A couple of ballpark figures might be handy..
As Brooke pointed out, the install is relatively quick. But remember, Koha as installed won't do anything useful until you set your local parameters, and that can be a _very_ lengthy process.
As with everything else, you get what you pay for. If you're paying a $20 hourly rate to someone who knows nothing about Koha, then you're going to spend a whole lot of money before you get what you want. It's far better to pay more per hour to someone who knows Koha and will spend fewer hours on your job. I would say the very _minimum_ rate in the US for someone who knows Koha should be $50 per hour. Expect to pay much more for a Koha "expert."
So if you figure that setting the system parameters required "most of a weekend" for Brooke, the cost of setting up a library (where all the work was done by someone other than the library) could easily hit $1,000 or more, not including the cost of any new hardware. And that also doesn't include the cost of importing any records from an existing system...
Which means this is a good time to once again make the point that free software is not free of charge -- unless you have the knowledge and time to do it all yourself.
++++ to Stephen, Here in France, my "standard answer" to an RFP for a "small" library is : 1 day in the library to speak with librarians & analyse the library. 4 days to set parameters & install the software 2 days teaching Koha to librarians. Total 7 day. 700Euros a day (without taxes, 19,6% here in France). Migrating datas is a BIG job too. something between 3 and 10 days, depending of the quality/number of the datas. NOTE : I almost never answer with a "standard answer", because of various needs for libraries. My strength, i think, is to be able to answer exaclty on what the library want. You already have a server ? OK, i'll use it, no need to buy a new one with a costly windows. You can install it yourself, just need help to set parameters ? OK, I can do it too. You also want specific templates ? No problems. You need to work on your datas during migration (to delete useless informations for example), let me know what you need, i'll do it. and it cost you 10 less time than if you do it yourself, because I'm better than you manipulating Koha & iso2709 files ;-) PS : what is a "small library" may you ask ? It's a library that has only a few of at least one of the following : librarians / borrowers / items. for example, a library with 100 000 documents, but only 2 librarians (like in Diocèse de Chambery) is small. A library with 2000 borrowers but 15 000 items is small too. A library with 100 000 items & 2000 borrowers is not small ;-) PS2 : that still a lot lower than proprietary ILS, that have the same day cost as me, but with licences... -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)
Fine question, but dificult to answer. When you choose a free software based solution you may have smaller aquisiton costs in the software side (you don't pay for licences), but you might have the same cost in services or salaries. The salaries varies a lot from country to country, U$S 20 an hour is a VERY good salary in my country (Uruguay, think in argentina is the same) and 700 Euros a day is a little fortune (Who should I kill ?). For developing countries most free software solutions are far more convenient, and they have a social effect: money is earned by people who live in the country, pay taxes there and use the money there. Andres Adam Steer wrote:
Hi Koha people
What are the average costs of a Koha install? There's plenty of discussion about buying library systems around the traps here, and I realised that there's no real 'throwaway' numbers out there to allow people to make a comparison with slickly-marketed paid systems...
So, if anyone is happy to do so, would it be possible to grab a few rough numbers for things like initial installation and setup, and any ongoing maintenance?
Along with the numbers, any relevant data that affects the cost would be useful - ie number of sites, number of records to be transferred, time it took to move from system X to koha...
The whole aim is to be able to say 'well, for your average school library, it might cost something like $xxxx if you need an external contractor to install and configure things..' - before having to go through the quoting process. A couple of ballpark figures might be handy..
If people see a useful purpose for such data, I'll compile a set of average numbers and send it back for the FAQ...
Cheers - and thanks!
participants (4)
-
Adam Steer -
Andres Tarallo -
Paul POULAIN -
Stephen Hedges