Ballparking design projects

Even for experienced freelancers, quoting on new projects can be a challenge. One of the inherent tensions is timing: quotes are often requested before committing to a project. This is completely reasonable, but it’s the same moment where there’s the least information available about the project. One common solution is to perform a discovery phase before committing to a scope and fee. Even then, there’s a reasonable chance the scope will change during the project, leading to dreaded “out of scope” conversations or the risk of being locked to a set of deliverables that won’t result in a good outcome. Instead of trying to land at a flat number with limited information, I offer ballpark ranges instead. Project data I’ve been billing my services on a time and materials basis since 2022 which means I have a diligent log of the time spent on every project I’ve billed since then. I publish this data as part of my push for transparency, and to give potential clients an idea of how long things…