Rafa, Welcome to one of the most challenging aspects of being a freelancer, contractor or independent agency.
"For all of you freelancers and employees at companies, at what point do you tell a potential customer how long/much will a project cost? and, how can you tell before doing the research? (which won't happen until they have agreed to work with you)." Unless your client is open to an estimate (as opposed to a fixed bid price --and few clients are) you need to give them a cost so they can decide whether to go ahead with their project, or compare your cost to other bidders. Sometimes you can phase the project so that Phase 1 has a price but phase 2 is to be determined, but most clients can't work that way. They need to know all costs before they can green light the project. There are two factors that influence what your bid should be: 1.) how much time you will spend and 2.) how much money the client will spend. These are at times frustratingly different realities. Whenever possible, I try to get some ball park figure from a potential client. Most clients do not want to tell you what their budget is -- I think this is a mistake on their part but that is another subject -- but some will simply tell you. For the others I will often throw out figures to gauge a reaction, e.g. "Do you want us to do extensive user research? That could add (fill in your blank) dollars to the project." Their reaction, if they react, to the question gives me a clue to what kind of budget they have. Sometimes I will say, "This project could be as high as X and as low as X depending on what you want done." And again try to gauge their reaction. Any clue helps. If you have gained some idea of client budget, you can then work out what you think would be the most attractive package of deliverables that you can provide in their price range. If you don't have any good feel for their budget, you simply have to make your best guess as to what they want and give them a bid. Define your deliverables as clearly as possible so that you don't get caught by unexpected features that you didn't know were expected. You can always add them to the contract if they come up. Do not leave your deliverables undefined -- such as "HTML for all screens needed to complete the site." One other tip. Do not underestimate the amount of time you will need to spend with the client's team, nor the number of iterations that will be required before you can get your designs or deliverables finalized. It is fairly straightforward to figure out how long it will take you to perform a particular task. But factor in that you will have to do the same task over and over again. It's just part of good professional service. Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
