There is a time a place for adding to a project. If it is a bid, I think you need to protect yourself. Especially if it is a new client. You need to have enough in reserve to cover modest scope changes that could be interpreted either way.<br>
<br>Further if a client wants to make sure they are going to get a fixed rate they are going to pay a bit of a premium on that.<br><br>I spoke with some a general contractor with a construction company I hired. He said when he is faced putting in a fixed bid for a renovation he will triple his estimate cause he just doesn't know what he will find.<br>
<br>When it comes to estimate I make sure I put in time for the intangibles people never think about, such as time on phone with the client, training, documentation, integration issues, etc. Starting with a new client I encourage them to start small with us, see how we handle a small project. Then they can feel more comfortable working time and materials.<br>
<br>Clients are always happy to have us come in under budget. If fact often the remainder of the budget is spent on other parts of the site. This is clearly a lot harder on project running 3-6 months. Clients usually don't have the patience to work through proper design specs.<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Sam Tresler <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sam@treslerdesigns.com">sam@treslerdesigns.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I will be most curious in hearing how long this job ends up taking in<br>
reality. Part of me despises over-bidding just for the sake of<br>
overbidding. The other part of me has spent 2/3rds of my web career<br>
cleaning up after the low-bidders.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
-S<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On Nov 24, 2009, at 2:42 PM, Fred Jones wrote:<br>
<br>
>> I work with someone on a Drupal 6 site and he hired a fancy NYC<br>
>> company (that charges well over $100 / hour) to do some more work on<br>
>> the site. The client asked me to write up a certain job and include<br>
>> some time estimates. Part of it is a custom node template, based on a<br>
>> PSD. The site template remains the same--this node template is just<br>
>> to<br>
>> customize the content section. OK, it may involve a *bit* of PHP for<br>
>> special fields, but it's still just a node template.<br>
>><br>
>> I estimated 3 hours and the NYers 33 hours. They estimate over $3300<br>
>> to make one node template!<br>
><br>
> Thanks everyone for the comments--some were quite interesting.<br>
><br>
> I would like to add that this firm was already hired and did a few<br>
> small jobs for this site, so the relationship already exists, as does<br>
> a bit of knowledge of the site. The page in question is indeed complex<br>
> and is more than just a node template. The other programmer broke it<br>
> down into a dozen tasks, including building special functionality.<br>
> Making the node template was just one step in the puzzle. His total<br>
> time was 15 hours for the full job.<br>
><br>
> Their total was 130 hours for the whole thing. They added that those<br>
> estimates may be conservative but they see no way it can be done in<br>
> less than 80 hours.<br>
><br>
> The *client* agreed that such an estimate is ridiculous.<br>
><br>
> F<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Christian<br>