E-commerce hosting: $500? $15,000!? Price of website of this nature? (VERY long)?

[Kim]

I'm trying to determine the cost of paying someone to build a website for my business. I'd really appreciate some help >.< Below I describe my needs for the website. Based on this, how much will it cost? Thanks in advance.

Website must be able to:

--> Sell products (via credit, debit, paypal). Only 10-15 types of products.
--> Run contests/sweepstakes. Specifically, it needs to keep track of all entries, limit the amount of entries to 5 per person, & hold contact info (to inform winners). These are the methods of entry that the website needs to monitor and make easily accessible my business:

1) When you make purchases, you can be automatically entered.
2) No purchase necessary option. Requires a submission of contact info online, & mailed letter.
3) "Contest codes". People login & enter "codes" for a chance to win. I want to be able to customize when (time/date) certain codes are valid. Also, I need to be able to customize how many entries to the contest each code produces when used in conjunction with another code. Eg, when Type A or Type B codes are independently submitted, they are worth 1 entry each. But if both codes are entered, each will produce 2 entries, not 1.

I need to easily access all contest entries & which method was used to enter. Along with member registration, & simple display of 3-4 pages of plain text (FAQ page, Contest Rules, etc), that's all I need. Optional things (done only if inexpensive): social media integration, SEOs, Adsense Integration, and site searching.

I've been told this will cost as little as $200 plus $50 per month, & as high as $15,000 plus $5,000 a month. I know Paypal/(others) takes a percentage of transactions.

So, questions:

- Excluding automatic percentage transaction fees (like on Paypal, they'll take a percentage of the purchase as a fee for facilitating the transaction), how much will it cost to pay someone to make a website of this nature?
- What are expected maintenance costs?
- Which e-commerce hosting services do you recommend? Wordpress does have sweepstake/contest plugins, but they have not been updated. What do you suggest?

BQ: What can I do to keep bookkeeping costs down with website structure?
FYI the contests are a legitimate thing. I've googled all applicable laws and spent days perfecting it. I will see lawyers prior to holding the contests to confirm all the legalese is in order, but I do understand what's expected of me from a legal standpoint in hosting a contest/sweepstake. It's not a scam or anything, I'm bound by contract law.

[J]

most of the things you want done are included in premium themes, except for the (honest) contests and book keeping, but they could be done by a good php/mysql database system. that system could be one that exists and looks like it meets your needs, then customized by the coder or more expensive new system

as to the hosting, you will need good bandwidth and capable of multiple databases-- which any reputable hosting company can supply- prices for this range from $20 per year and up-- with some this would include premium themes of your choice

the maintaining of the site, could be done by you or a site admin which of course implies an employment or contract agreement that you would negotiate

if you are unfamiliar with installing a WP platform, plugins, themes, etc some hosting companies offer that service- then either you or your siteadmin configure it as you like.

online business dev costs can run the entire range you were quoted, but there are usually large differenced between what is done by each dev, such as guidance, graphics, business dev , etc

http://bypasshost.com