How do you come up with cost estimates for clients?
I’m barely in my second year of call at a small boutique firm. Occasionally we’ll do some contract work for clients - usually software license agreements, but sometimes other things as well.
A significant portion of the work we do is billed on a flat fee basis. Work billed on an hourly basis is usually quoted by my boss. This time I was asked to provide a quote based on a preliminary review of the draft documents.
I quoted the client an amount based on similar work we did for another client, the fact that the documents were internally inconsistent and would need closer review, how long I figured it would take me to revise the documents after review, added a couple hours because we’ve had clients complain about exceeding estimates in the past, and the fact that things still take me longer than they probably should.
I feel like it was a realistic estimate, though, out of an abundance of caution, admittedly on the higher end of what I figured it might cost.
Client immediately said it was too much and that they’d pass on us doing the work.
I know my boss won’t be that upset about it and will probably tell the client we’ll do it for less, but i still feel like I shit the bed a bit and lost a client.
How am I supposed to provide cost estimates when I’m still so junior, especially for work I don’t do on a regular basis?