White House today announced it would temporarily shut down We The People, saying a new platform would save $1mm. The site is basically a petition site where users can create and sign petitions and the president could personally reply after the signatures reach a certain threshold.
How much does it normally cost to build and maintain a site like this? Is there any information about how much the White House spends on this site? Is the number normally inflated because it’s a government site?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/365521-trump-admin-to-temporarily-take-down-petition-website
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/
Secondly, I think that million dollar price tag is about right. Let's say you have 10 full time people building and maintaining the site. Developers, dev ops, security, pointy haired managers, etc. Add in the hardware/hosting costs and you have a million dollars right there.