Creating Development Estimates

Hi all,

My first post! Only taken me nearly 2 months lol

First of all, MODx is awesome, i don’t know how I’ve managed without it before! Cant wait for 0.9.7!

Anyway, I’ve recently been asked by a friend to put together a quote/estimate to build a website for his company, nothing special just 20 or so pages of information and possible a booking system (going to be using MODx naturally). However I’m not sure what i need to be putting on the quote/estimate, and how much to charge etc.
I recently set up a freshbooks account to create the estimate for me but I was just wondering what other people put on theirs, and if there is a sort of template/standard for creating an estimate?

Any suggestions/help would be great.

Thanks Paul

Hi,

We have used lost of different systems and the one I like best is our excel speadsheet. This is made up of time in the first column, then descrption, then cost with is our rate x time)

if you think about everything you will have to do, anticipating every question and every task , css coding, snippets, design, server config etc etc to develop the result required and meet your customers expectation (Almost as if you imagine your doing the project and walking though it) and list every single task in your spreadsheet, even if its 10mins work, broken into sections such a design, configuration of snippets, writing chunks etc you will be surprised how accurate you can get. The other benefits are;

1. Its clear to the customer what is being done and that extras are additional work
2. As your spreadsheet develops it will serve as your project questionnaire also
3. Customer may appreciate understanding how you arrived at your cost and the care you have taken and anticipate potential work not covered
4. Its easy to refine, each time you complete a client project you will anticipate other questions, and what might become options for customer to consider

I find a lot of web designers I talk to are saying "I don’t charge enough" or it always takes me longer than anticipated". Of course we all loose out on some orders on cost, but if you have an accurate estimate of time, you can at least decide what you want top charge for the time involved and if its a lot of work for the money, move on letting someone else realise half way thought they have completely undercharged.

Hope it helps....

I totally second what edge is saying here, but I’d like to add a few things.

Undercharging always happens when you set a fixed price, especially if you try to be "fair". You have to take a margin of error into account. You think task X will take 15mn : well, double that. Of course there are a lot of pressure from potential clients (and clients) to have you work at a fixed price, and also, there is the competition. But basically they end up transfering project risk on you, and you end up earning minimum wages if you’re not careful to define clearly what’s in the package and what is not (and this is a fairly hard exercise !). I have been there and I have trouble getting the upper hand, though I am getting better at this (experience is the only way to improve here...).

One of the hardest thing is, the client doesn’t always know what he needs and want. He thinks he does, but then implicit needs emerge and you end up spending twice (or way more !) time than expected.

A few resources I have found extremely insightful on this matter :
Are you working for free ?
Charging Hourly Vs. Fixed Price
Nine Factors to Consider When Determining Your Price
The Price is right

Kelly Goto wrote a book "Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works" that I found extremely useful when I first started out doing web design.

On the other hand, I am still under quote most of the time Here in the US, I heard many web designers said to never quote per project as a whole but hourly rate, but my personal experience is, I feel more comfortable and less pressure working with a fixed price project because as a customer myself sometimes, I feel under pressure with a great anxiety when I am billed by hourly rate.

The trick is, if you go with fixed price, you must work out a way that is works for you and for your client. One thing I think is, never to let customer pays for your learning curve. Oh, I do charge hourly rate with maintenance.

Thanks for your replies

Some great points, duly noted.
I’m guessing at this is going to be first time, i’m bound time miss something but hopefully these will help me cover most things.

ps the http://freelanceswitch.com/ is awesome, thanks davidm.

pps I look forward to putting the finished site on here for your opinions.

Many Thanks,
Paul

posts 0? how is that possible?

Quote from: Dimmy at Sep 26, 2007, 03:10 PM

posts 0? how is that possible?

it must be that Paul was playing the Microsoft CD backwards

LOL ... offtopic forum doesn’t increase post counts based on some early stuff that went on. Might change that in the future.

On the topic of estimates, I’m going to head more and more towards Google Docs Spreadsheets so I can create estimates anywhere with ease.

lol damn ill have to think of something else to post about now!