Freelancer here, so my perspective might be a bit different from all the solo founders in this thread. Whenever I need to draw up a quote for a project of any

Freelancer here, so my perspective might be a bit different from all the solo founders in this thread. Whenever I need to draw up a quote for a project of any size, I divide up the time as follows: 30% actual development, 50% communication with the client, and 20% set aside for any changes or scope creep that could come up during the project that I'm not sure can be billed separately. For repeat customers, the last item can be adjusted either up or down based on my past experience with them. Anyway, what this means is that the amount of time I actually spend writing and testing the code rarely takes up more than 1/3 of the total hours I work & bill. Spending half the time talking to the client might sound like a waste of time, but if you do it properly you can improve the quality and fit of the result so much that the client will gladly pay 3 times the effective hourly rate.