| In my experience estimates are off more often than not (or I'm really bad at this). What I do is this: - Split the project up in phases and split each phase into work chunks - Conservatively estimate the time each chunk will take - Estimate and add all project overhead (project management, meetings,...) - Add time/budget for all known unknowns (design iterations, testing, bugfixes, deployment,...) - Multiply the sum with a factor for unexpected things (things taking longer than expected, technical issues, anything unforseen). Depending on the absolute amount of hours budgeted and on what you know about the project and client this factor could be anywhere between 1.1 (everything should be straight forward) to 2 or even more. - Multiply the total sum with your hourly/daily rate - "Round" up the total number, depending on the client (smaller or larger company). This could mean to change 16.789$ to 20.000$ or 6.407$ to 7.000$ This helped me getting away from a pure hourly rate to flat-rate prices, whereas the estimation error should always be heavily on your side. |