Project Quote Calculator
Price a fixed-fee project honestly: estimated hours at your real rate, an allowance for the revisions that always arrive, direct costs and a margin — then copy the summary straight into an email.
Quote this project at
$4,653
Effective rate $96.94 across 48 buffered hours.
What the client is paying for
- Your time$3,40073%
- Revisions allowance$68015%
- Direct costs$1503%
- Margin$4239%
If scope moves
- No buffer at all$3,905
- Buffer at 15%$4,466
- Buffer at 30%$5,027
- Cost of one unpaid extra week$850lost
Client-ready quote summary
Project: Website redesign Estimated effort: 40 hours of work, including allowance for revisions Direct costs included: $150 (stock assets, licences, third-party services) Total project fee: $4,653 Deposit to begin: $1,861 (40%) Balance on delivery: $2,792 Included: the deliverables listed above, plus two rounds of revisions. Additional rounds or new requirements are quoted separately before any work starts. Payment terms: 14 days from invoice date.
Why fixed-fee quoting goes wrong
Nearly every freelance project that loses money loses it the same way: the estimate covered the work as described, and the work as delivered was bigger. A logo becomes a logo plus three alternative directions. A five-page site becomes five pages plus a blog plus a booking form. None of that is a client being difficult; it is what happens when people see their idea take shape and start to think properly about it for the first time.
So a quote needs two separate things in it: your best estimate of the work, and a deliberate allowance for the part nobody can estimate. Lumping them together as one optimistic number is what turns a profitable project into an unpaid fortnight.
Setting each input
Estimate hours for the work as briefed, including the unglamorous parts — setup, testing, handover, the call where you explain what you did. Use an hourly rate at or above your real floor; if you have not worked that out yet, do it first, because quoting from a made-up rate just hides the problem inside a bigger number.
The buffer is judgement. A one-page brief signed off by a single decision-maker justifies 15 percent. A project with a committee, an undefined content source, or a client who has already changed their mind twice during the sales conversation deserves 30 percent or more. If that feels cynical, compare it with the alternative, which is absorbing the overrun yourself.
Direct costs are anything you pay out for this specific project: stock photography, a font licence, a paid plugin, a subcontracted illustrator, three months of hosting during the build. Bill them at cost or slightly above, but never forget them — unbilled expenses are pure loss.
Margin is what separates a business from a job. It funds the quiet month, the client who pays late, the laptop that dies, and eventually the time you take off.
Protecting the price after you send it
The copy-ready summary below the calculator is written to do one job: make the boundary explicit. It lists the fee, the deposit, the balance, the number of revision rounds included, and one sentence saying that new requirements are quoted before work begins. That sentence is the most valuable thing in the document. It turns an awkward confrontation halfway through a project into a neutral reference back to something the client already agreed to.
Take a deposit. A third to a half before anything starts is ordinary professional practice, it filters out clients who were never going to pay, and it means a cancelled project does not cost you the work you already did. Put payment terms in writing on both the quote and the invoice, and state a late fee — a stated fee is respected far more often than it is ever charged.
Frequently asked questions
- How big should the scope-creep buffer be?
- For a well-defined project with a written brief, 15 percent. For vague scope, a new client, or anything involving several stakeholders who must agree, 25 to 35 percent. The buffer is not padding — it is the revisions and the extra calls that always happen.
- Should I show the client this breakdown?
- Show the deliverables and the total. Clients rarely react well to a line labelled contingency, so fold the buffer into the price of the work rather than presenting it as a separate charge.
- Why does a fixed price beat charging by the hour?
- Because it moves the conversation from how long you take to what the work is worth, and it stops you being punished for being fast. It only works when scope is written down, which is exactly what the deliverables list forces you to do.
- What deposit should I ask for?
- A third to half up front is normal for solo work, with the rest on delivery or split across milestones. If a client refuses any deposit on a first project, treat that as information.
- Does this include tax or VAT?
- No. The total is the fee for your work. Add VAT or sales tax on top according to your own registration, and keep your tax set-aside out of the client conversation entirely.