Hi all,
I’ve been freelancing for nearly a year now & I’m still struggling with the whole quoting process. On bigger projects I can sometimes spend hours preparing a quote detailing the work & often clients are coming back wanting it a lot cheaper or even just leaving the quote un-answered full stop. It’s extremely frustrating when you spend a lot of time researching the problems, understanding the full scope of a project & getting it all down on paper.
I know clients are generally going to want things cheaper but I’m often finding that projects tend to need more hours than I even quote for - always a few un-anticpated problems, clients squeezing a few little extras in as the project progresses etc. - so my hourly rate never works out that fantastic. I enjoy the work & I’m still learning, so the hourly rate is not a problem right now, but as things progress it’s something that I know I’m going to need to address.
How do others deal with quoting - are there structures/methods for reliable quotes? How do you manage client expectations? Do you prepare a preliminary quote before spending considerable time preparing a proper one? How do you decide a quote is competitive or not? Or is quoting just always going to be a difficult process?
I feel a little isolated at the moment - programming in my office on my own - I have no real clue on how other professionals go about this. I’d very much welcome any input the community can give me.
Many thanks,
Paul
