There are many people who would call $2500 their two day rate. So, $10k+ doesn't seem that far fetched for a project of this complexity that delivers business value of some sort.
I don't mean to be facetious, but there are also developers, and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word, that call $100 their daily rate. My guess is that both parties need to maximise the value/profit ration by negotiating. $10k sounds right as we are delving into hypotheticals.
I think that's far. I mostly posted because I don't want people to believe that $5k is the most you could get for this project.
There are infinite ways you could add a ton of value to this project that would be worth more than $5k. Automating the data retrieval and plugging it into mechanical turk for verification, being able to critique or comment on the deeper meaning of the change in colors. Or even online marketing to get the backlinks for a business could potentially be worth $10k.
But from your comment "it doesn't take that long.." its clear to me we're thinking about this in two different ways.
You're saying, "Here's how long it would take me..." hourly * estimate.
I'm saying, "Here's how to add more business value..." business_value * my_cut_to_decimal
If you can, perhaps by not even programming, make business_value a large enough number then (business_value * my_cut_to_decimal) > (hourly * estimate).
I'd go one step further and argue that the higher price is a win for both parties. You get paid more, and the company has just discovered a slot that they can slide money into and get more money back out off.
