How to estimate project hours using work you have already done
Your last project contains evidence for your next quote. Here is how to turn recorded hours into an estimate you can explain and improve.
Topic
Pricing
Rate cards, retainers, fixed fees, and what to charge.
Setting a freelance rate that survives contact with reality
Most freelance rate advice starts from what you want to earn and stops there. The arithmetic that matters is the number of hours you can actually sell.
Hourly, fixed fee, or value-based: choosing how to charge
The three models fail in different directions. Knowing which failure you can absorb is more useful than knowing which model is fashionable.
Catching scope creep before it eats the retainer
Scope creep is rarely one big unreasonable request. It is forty small ones, none of which was worth an argument, and the only reliable detector is a number you check monthly.
Effective hourly rate: the number that tells you a retainer has gone wrong
Your rate card says $150 an hour. Effective hourly rate is what you actually got. The gap between the two is where agency margin quietly disappears.
What an hour of your team actually costs
Salary divided by 2,080 is the wrong answer, and it is wrong in the direction that loses money. Here is how to work out the number you should be pricing against.
Numbers like these, without the spreadsheet
Utilization, effective hourly rate and project margin, straight out of tracked time.
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