Cheers for reading and leaving the comment. I know its tough to refuse giving ballpark estimates but I think its perfectly acceptable if you explain to the client why you can’t do it right then and there. However if they gave you an hour or two of their time, explaining a bit more about the requirements, and then took a hour or so to do a bit of research and pull an estimate together, they should be fine with it.

You’re absolutely right about managing their expectations, I do this by referring to the version of the requirements that the estimate is based on. Then, as the requirements grow in breadth or depth, they can see the impact of this. The key, I’ve found is to do it frequently, so there are no big jumps in costs and no surprises for the client.

Thanks for stopping by.

Client: I need a website for my business. How much will it cost?
Us: Hmm. Anywhere between $5000 and $50000.

I have found that as long as we continue to manage client expectations, and we go through a solid discovery phase (the result being reasonably solid project scope documents) that we are usually in pretty good shape.

Anyway, thanks for sharing Neil.