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On the other side, if you ask a lot of good questions and give a quote that's within budget, the client is going to be suspicious of another quote where similar

On the other side, if you ask a lot of good questions and give a quote that's within budget, the client is going to be suspicious of another quote where similar insightful questions weren't asked first. If another quote is very cheap, the client will probably question if that's going to reflect the quality of the work. There's also risk that the developer they take the requirements + design doesn't really understand what they're getting into and can't execute. I don't think there's any easy answers, but generally you want to work on attracting clients that are more interested in high quality work over the cheapest price where shopping around like this isn't a good use of their time. Chatting about rough budgets first and making sure the client is going to profit from the work helps too. It's great when you get to charge for the planning phase though because you're not feeling rushed into committing to a quote with too many unknowns that might not really solve their problem. If you explain why it's risky to quote with so little information, some clients will listen and aren't going to go with someone asking nothing and offering a cheap price.

atleta 6y ago
Yes, good questions are important in order to convince a client (whether the project is hourly or fixed price). > There's also risk that the developer they take the requirements + design doesn't really understand what they're getting into and can't execute. Yes, and I've mentioned that. But what matters is if the client is aware of it or not. Yes, you always want to aim for quality clients, still with all this planning and estimation, even with the best intentions I think that a lot of time gets wasted on lost bids. > It's great when you get to charge for the planning phase though Now that I think back, I had exactly one project like this, more than a decade ago. I've created the requirement specification based on client interviews, they paid for it then sent it to a few competing companies and all of us made a proposal. We didn't win it in the end, but at least that was a pretty fair and transparent process. (The company was owned by Deutsche Telekom, so it wasn't exactly an accident.)

atleta 6y ago

Yes, good questions are important in order to convince a client (whether the project is hourly or fixed price). > There's also risk that the developer they take the requirements + design doesn't really understand what they're getting into and can't execute. Yes, and I've mentioned that. But what matters is if the client is aware of it or not. Yes, you always want to aim for quality clients, still with all this planning and estimation, even with the best intentions I think that a lot of time gets wasted on lost bids. > It's great when you get to charge for the planning phase though Now that I think back, I had exactly one project like this, more than a decade ago. I've created the requirement specification based on client interviews, they paid for it then sent it to a few competing companies and all of us made a proposal. We didn't win it in the end, but at least that was a pretty fair and transparent process. (The company was owned by Deutsche Telekom, so it wasn't exactly an accident.)