Thanks for all the responses guys.
Jeremy - I understand your reason for doing it, the initial setup cost that you were quoted previously sounds on the high side, but not insane - but then it depends what they were doing for the price. I build all of my own software from the ground up, I don't use any other open source web app's or the like, all of my stuff is tailored. Sometimes I come in at the high end with my quotes, but that's usually because im offering a hell of a lot more then the other developers, both in terms of features, and experience.
Having a client constantly ask you to change this, change that is a bit of a nightmare from our side - we can't turn around and say, ok that'll be £10 beccause it seems pointless to invoice for such a small amount. But its not as easy as you think for us to make some of these changes, some require that we test in all browsers again after. And if I'm working on another project at the time, I have to close down my dev environment and start it all up again to make your quick change. There's a few ways around this, but my method is to give the agent's my content management system, which allows them to make any changes that they want to the website - without even asking me! They can all create new menu items and pages, upload files etc.
I have used this to great effect with many clients, and they all love it. €450 euros an hour for changes is truly stupid.
In regards to the hosting bill, wow that's high! That's almost as much as I pay per month for my dedicated server.
So all in all, I would say that given your past experience and the current market, you have probably done the right thing.
Web Development is a weird set of skills, I find that you don't really know how much you don't know, until you are humbled by another developer. It's extremely annoying for us to see all these people offering websites for £100 - and at the same time, its very annoying to hear of the ripoff merchants that are around. At the end of the day, its us developers that know what we're doing, and offer a good service that suffer.
We are out there though, so don't give up on us all together!
