20K price tag is perfectly reasonable to develop a first public beta version of a web application (not too simple, not too complicated).
Web application is much much more then a basic rails scaffold with devise and paperclip. For most of the web apps that we see in beta I'd estimate 200-500 hours of development.
"1st beta" is important here. once you go out to public with your service the real work starts. A web application with real users that is open to public for some time can get way over 1000 hours of development for support, bug fixes, pivoting, new features, operations etc.
Web application is much much more then a basic rails scaffold with devise and paperclip. For most of the web apps that we see in beta I'd estimate 200-500 hours of development.
"1st beta" is important here. once you go out to public with your service the real work starts. A web application with real users that is open to public for some time can get way over 1000 hours of development for support, bug fixes, pivoting, new features, operations etc.