--- title: If You Ask Someone to Build Your Website, Don’t Ghost... description: A freelance developer recounts quoting a client for an e-commerce website project, only to be ghosted after revealing the price. The piece reflects on how a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/if-you-ask-someone-to-build-your-website-don-t-ghost-them-when-you-hear-the-price-tgqbcjh8m twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: If You Ask Someone to Build Your Website, Don’t Ghost Them When You Hear the Price | daily.dev og:description: A freelance developer recounts quoting a client for an e-commerce website project, only to be ghosted after revealing the price. The piece reflects on how a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/if-you-ask-someone-to-build-your-website-don-t-ghost-them-when-you-hear-the-price-tgqbcjh8m og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tgqbcJh8M.png og:image:alt: If You Ask Someone to Build Your Website, Don’t Ghost Them When You Hear the Price og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # If You Ask Someone to Build Your Website, Don’t Ghost Them When You Hear the Price **[John Liter](https://daily.dev/sources/yhf9cpdgtqetokv6d8qhm)** · [@jliter85](https://daily.dev/jliter85) · 1 min read · 2 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary A freelance developer recounts quoting a client for an e-commerce website project, only to be ghosted after revealing the price. The piece reflects on how a polished AI-generated UI can mislead clients into underestimating the engineering effort, cost, and system complexity behind building a real, functional website versus a simple frontend mockup. ## Content A polished e-commerce frontend can hide a lot of engineering. I wrote about quoting a real project, getting ghosted, and why AI-generated UI is only part of building the system. [Click to read the full article](https://realjohnliter.substack.com/p/if-you-ask-someone-to-build-your?r=7ztgjw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true) #WebDevelopment #Ecommerce #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #WebsiteDesign ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@cjbaccus** · 0 upvotes > I agree... this is a difficult business especially with the competition out there including AI. But a developers time is still valuable, and they do NOT understand the level of effort that goes into true professional built sites. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI Website Builder vs Developer: Which Should You Choose in 2026?](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-website-builder-vs-developer-which-should-you-choose-in-2026--htna4cnej) · WP Mayor · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I charged $18,000 for a Static HTML Page](https://daily.dev/posts/i-charged-18-000-for-a-static-html-page-c7jwayhy5) · Hacker News · 254 upvotes · 36 comments - [The Hidden Tax of Hourly Software Development — And Why AI Just Made It Unacceptable](https://daily.dev/posts/the-hidden-tax-of-hourly-software-development-and-why-ai-just-made-it-unacceptable-nkg6izyfo) · Medium · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#ecommerce](https://daily.dev/tags/ecommerce) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/if-you-ask-someone-to-build-your-website-don-t-ghost-them-when-you-hear-the-price-tgqbcjh8m) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/if-you-ask-someone-to-build-your-website-don-t-ghost-them-when-you-hear-the-price-tgqbcjh8m","headline":"If You Ask Someone to Build Your Website, Don’t Ghost Them When You Hear the Price","text":"A freelance developer recounts quoting a client for an e-commerce website project, only to be ghosted after revealing the price. 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