Hinnakalkulaator fototeenustele

I made this calculator for photographer Mailis Vahenurm. It seemed to be a piece of cake at the beginning. My calculator for website services was already in place, and took several hours to build. So, how difficult could something similar be?

After our first 3.5-hour meeting with Mailis it became crystal clear that nothing is going to be easy in this project. We started out discussing the pricing strategies and ended up decomposing her photography services. Everything cried for heavy simplification and better business logic.

The planning process started with pen and paper

We met twice more, spending ca 10 hours on discussions in total. In between those meetings, I vibecoded the tool. This took me much less time than our discussions, even though the logic was complicated and required a decent effort to formulate it to AI. Also, the prices and their criteria were changing along the way, and this didn’t make the situation easier.

Finally, after so much time and input on our side, the calculator was ready and worked as expected. At least, locally on my and Mailis’ computers. Then it was time to integrate it with Mailis’ WordPress website, and this is where we got really stuck.

WordPress wouldn’t allow us to run the script as a matter of fact. (My website services calculator ran on Wix Studio, and embedding it was a breeze.)

My WordPress experience dated from half a dozen years ago, and was obviously almost obsolete. Mailis appeared to be more experienced with her website, and she didn’t give in. Guided by Gemini, she reinvented the code and finally, made it work for her site.

And me — I quietly decided to stay away from WordPress whenever I can. Embedding the calculator on this vibecoded website was a matter of a few prompts.