Why estimates are always low
Underestimation is not carelessness. Every force acting on the person producing the number pushes in the same direction.
Read the guideEditorial · for studios and freelancers
The estimate was forty hours. The project was sixty-three.
For agencies, studios and freelancers: how to estimate work that has never been done before, write a scope that survives the project, record time in a way that stands up to a client query, and get paid without chasing.
40
hours quoted on a typical small project
63
hours it actually takes, unmeasured
30
guides in the archive
5
core sections for running client-service work
Sections
From the quote to the cleared payment
Five sections following the order a project actually runs in: price it, write down what it includes, record what it took, invoice it, and manage the relationship that determines whether any of it happens again.
Estimating
Pricing work nobody has done before, ranges instead of numbers, and what to do when the estimate turns out to be wrong.
6 guidesScope
Writing down what is included, noticing when it changes, and raising it before the work is already done.
6 guidesTracking time
Recording hours so the numbers mean something: what to capture, at what granularity, and how to make it survive a busy week. For a broader framework, PMI's overview of project management summarises the standard concepts behind planning and delivery.
6 guidesBilling and cash
Invoices that get paid, terms that protect you, deposits, and the uncomfortable conversation about money owed.
6 guidesClient work
Onboarding, communication, the client who is losing you money, and ending an engagement well.
6 guidesStart here
Six guides worth reading first
The pieces that most often change how a small studio prices and runs its work.
Writing a scope that survives the project
Most statements of work describe what will be done. The useful half is what will not be.
Read the guideWhat to record, and at what granularity
Too coarse and the data answers nothing. Too fine and it does not get recorded at all.
Read the guideInvoices that get paid without chasing
Most late payment is administrative rather than deliberate. The invoice arrived wrong, late, or to the wrong person.
Read the guideWorking out which clients lose you money
Every studio has one, and it is usually not the one anybody suspects.
Read the guideThe first two weeks decide the engagement
Almost every difficult client relationship was set up in the opening fortnight, by things nobody said.
Read the guideWritten for two people and a shared spreadsheet
Most advice on running a services business assumes an operations manager, a finance function and a project management office. These guides assume the person doing the estimating is also the person doing the work, the invoicing and the chasing.
Nearly all of it depends on knowing what work actually took, which is why recording time runs through the whole site. Products are referenced as examples of their categories; one of them is Monitask, a time-tracking product used here as one reference point alongside other tools.
Browse the full archive of 30 guides in the index.