Refer to my earlier post as to why you are being quoted so high. I will further expand this by pointing out that a new programmer, coming in to take over what someone else did, initially has no idea how it was programmed or if indeed everything is working correctly or up to their standards. That requires research into the system design and connectivity and oftentimes breaking it down to the basics and starting from scratch. That takes time, time is money. The other justification is this...as soon as the new programmer touches your system, he's on the hook for it, its changes and oftentimes in the clients mind anything that happens down the road whether it's related to the programming change or not. The willingness to accept ownership involves risk; accepting the future risk is often mitigated by collecting payment in advance to cover such risk in the future.