The problem with pricing any script or plugin (Oxwall or not) now days is the fact that developement wise we in the USA and elsewhere get undercut by third world country coders. And no i am not dissing or saying anything bad about third world coders, i am simply saying we are not compairing apples to apples when it comes to producing an item.
The bottom line is price, i bid jobs all the time but rarely get the bid anymore because someone from pakistan can bid the job at 10% of what i can bid it for due to USD conversion rate and the economy. So in order to even try to compete, many times i have to bid a job at $7-$10 an hour to even have a chance to be in the final running for the bid. The biggest issue with hiring a third world country coder is the language barrier and trying to get them to understand your specs, and that you are supporting their economy and not ours. It basically comes down as always to what the consumer values, supporting their own economy, price, value added service after the sale.
If you have a local client that has not only the funding but also the dedication to the local economy then you might get your $60 to $120 an hour for developement but those prices are very hard to sustain on the general market.
In days to come it will not get any better for either them or us, i know they work very long hours for little money, and now in order to compete we at times must do the same. It is a very challenging situation.
have a look at ellg plugins i was tossing up ellg or oxwall and i am starting to wish i went with elgg
http://community.elgg.org/plugins
ellg plugins there way more and way better plugins and most of them are free, lots are branded so developer get links to there sites with pay to remove branding
I was on elgg for awhile a few years ago, and at first its impressive. But then i had issues with abandoned plugins that i paid for and elgg would not take them over or find another dev to take them over. 1x or 2x is ok, it will happen but not 4 or 5x so i got tired of telling my members we are going to change "again" and "again" so i said screw elgg. I also find Oxwalls structure a little more friendly. And on Oxwall you dont have so many smart ass punks with smart mouths in the forum being rude all the time like elgg.
Yes i do understand there is a huge gap between bids, part of that is with all the open source projects and "how to code" resources available, programming in general has taken a big hit in the market. Which means less staff and more time mangement which equates to higher rates. Many americans dont think about quantity, they think about making up the difference right now rather than long term. Mostly because many have been burned in the ever changing world or software waiting for that long term payoff, when in fact what normaly happens is that before that payoff arrives and they can make profit, things change, new features are the hot topic and they must reinvest to stay current. It is a vicious circle of chasing your tail.... lol
The three markets that are still going good are, specialty coding, medical coding, financial and accounting coding because those are not fun and people will pay to have someone else do what the hate to do.
And anyone that says that coding is not hard mental work has no clue, it drains you.
@Tammy
" just to make oxwall work " now tammy i agree with you they are pricey but that comment you know is exagerating dont you think. Oxwall works just fine with no plugins. If you want it to do more then you can get plugins.