<story><title>Ask HN: Developers, how do you estimate projects and write proposals?</title><text>I’m interested to know how fellow software developers (freelancers, small businesses) estimate projects for clients.&lt;p&gt;Do you use any tools to come up with a quote?
Do you send a proposal document to clients?
If so, do you use a tool to generate one, or do you just use a template in a word processor?
What are your main pain points when quoting for work?&lt;p&gt;Cheers!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaggederest</author><text>Somewhat heretical, but I generally don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;I usually explain that development is an iterative process, and that I generally deliver work as soon as it&amp;#x27;s done.&lt;p&gt;We talk about the knobs that are available to tune the work to the goal, and how to measure goals. We talk about containing costs, and working together to deliver good value.&lt;p&gt;I find that in general, estimates are rarely, if ever, accurate to any significant degree, and thus are usually dishonest when presented as a way to assuage client anxiety over &amp;quot;when will it get done&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;how much will it cost&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crispyambulance</author><text>Completion estimates may be dishonest but that&amp;#x27;s how things are done almost everywhere, yes, even shops that use Agile, complete with burn-down charts, stand-ups and sprints. I&amp;#x27;ve seen &amp;quot;Agile&amp;quot; teams that go through all the motions of a modern sw development team BUT STILL have to give the completion date of the whole project! Before the work starts!&lt;p&gt;FWIW, it&amp;#x27;s not as bad as it sounds, it just means that the PM&amp;#x27;s see red in their charts and end up bugging people with &amp;quot;urgency attacks&amp;quot;. Slippage is common and that&amp;#x27;s OK.&lt;p&gt;The vast majority of the time, an estimate is just an estimate. Passing a deadline isn&amp;#x27;t fatal, nor is it failure (regardless of whatever it says in the Project Management Book of Knowledge).</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Developers, how do you estimate projects and write proposals?</title><text>I’m interested to know how fellow software developers (freelancers, small businesses) estimate projects for clients.&lt;p&gt;Do you use any tools to come up with a quote?
Do you send a proposal document to clients?
If so, do you use a tool to generate one, or do you just use a template in a word processor?
What are your main pain points when quoting for work?&lt;p&gt;Cheers!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaggederest</author><text>Somewhat heretical, but I generally don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;I usually explain that development is an iterative process, and that I generally deliver work as soon as it&amp;#x27;s done.&lt;p&gt;We talk about the knobs that are available to tune the work to the goal, and how to measure goals. We talk about containing costs, and working together to deliver good value.&lt;p&gt;I find that in general, estimates are rarely, if ever, accurate to any significant degree, and thus are usually dishonest when presented as a way to assuage client anxiety over &amp;quot;when will it get done&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;how much will it cost&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rossdavidh</author><text>The only right answer.  If they cannot accept a diplomatic, reasoned and carefully explained &amp;quot;we can&amp;#x27;t know, but I&amp;#x27;ll finish as quickly as I can&amp;quot; answer, then they probably won&amp;#x27;t be very understandable when things turn out to take longer than expected.  Or if they change their mind about what they want and expect you to nonetheless finish on the original schedule because it&amp;#x27;s just a small change.  Politely and gently refusing to provide an estimate for the unknowable, is a good way to avoid working with clients who will be not worth working with anyway.&lt;p&gt;Hard as this is up front, it&amp;#x27;s harder to explain afterwards why your estimate didn&amp;#x27;t work out, and it&amp;#x27;s harder to eat the cost difference yourself.  Be gentle and polite, and accept that they may or may not be willing to work with you on trust that you will do your best to finish as quickly as you can.</text></comment>