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The art of quoting as a freelancer,
in 5 steps
13.01.2015 info@freelancermap.com
FREELANCER TIPS

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The art of quoting as a freelancer
In freelancing the client is king, catering to specific needs and
requests is something any good freelancer should learn to
do. Many, if not all clients will want to know how much
your services will cost them before the beginning of an
actual project. This preliminary estimate of a project’s cost
is called “quoting” or having a sales quote. Needless to say,
the expectations set by this quote will be a deciding factor
in how well your work goes. Price it too low and you might
not be getting what you’re worth, price it too high and you
might lose out on some proposals. Quoting can be tricky –
here are five steps that will set you on the path of doing it
right.

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1) “Discovery sheet”
The first and most important part of quoting is determining
how much the client can pay and how much he or she is
willing to pay. Some freelancers use a very interesting
method that can lead to great results. It is called a
“discovery sheet”. Most clients will be unwilling to just
straight out tell you their budget if you ask them, but a
professionally looking document can often squeeze out
some information. Ask them about their goals, timeframe,
expectations and how much they plan to put aside for the
project. Even if you don’t get a final number, knowing their
thoughts on these matters can help you determine the
importance of the project and thus its price.

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2) Market awareness
The relationship between freelancers and businesses does not
exist in a vacuum, it is important to know your market
value when estimating your quote. Check out what other
freelancers charge, compare your experience to theirs and
adjust accordingly. You don’t want to go much below the
average, but being above it can and will in some cases lead
to the company finding another freelancer to do the job for
less.

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3) Pricing Milestones
Milestones are something that aspiring freelancers tend to
overlook at the beginning. You do your job, get paid at the
end and everyone is happy right? Unfortunately, reality can
be a bit harsher than that. In order to not risk wasting your
time and doing parts of a project for free, make sure to set
milestones. Many freelancers charge up front, which shows
their confidence in the work they provide and can be a
reassurance that both sides get what they bargained for. A
typical up-front percentage ranges from 33% to 50%. You
can also have additional milestones for, say, half or a third
of the job’s completion.

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4) The 10-20 percent buffer
Often when drafting up a quote, freelancers tend to assume
the “best case scenario”. This keeps the quote attractively
low. However, a lot of things can go wrong on a project,
like the client changing their mind, responding too slowly
to your questions and just generally making work slower
for whatever reason. Therefore it is a good idea to have a
so-called buffer of 10%-20%, assuming that everything
does not turn out to be as smooth as butter and you have
to put in more time than initially planned.

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5) Track your time
Tracking your time, especially on your first couple of projects
can be extremely beneficial. Often, we don’t realize how
many hours we actually spend on a project and think small
tasks like writing emails or answering them are negligible
when time is concerned. These things add up though. A
project that takes 50 hours of pure work might actually
imply 70 hours of you toiling away. There are a lot of great
free software solutions online, like Klok and RescueTime
which will help you track work time and determine your
quote better as a result.

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