Most software quotes are a guess. Mine are not. I cost the project before anyone sees a price, and when it ships I put the real hours next to that estimate.

Quoted this way

20

projects in the last two years, each with requirements, screens and a scope

In production

13

installations that went through it and are still running

1. 01costed
2. 02
3. 03
4. 04
5. 05
6. 06
7. 07counted

1. 01

   Price it before quoting

   Part of my week is looking for customers, and for places where software, automation or the right equipment pays for itself.

   Before anyone sees a price I run the numbers: which supplier, how long the development takes, how much a job like this usually overruns, what the company needs to earn.

   A quote with no margin is not a sale. It is work given away.

2. 02

   Ask the floor and the office

   I walk the process where it happens.

   Then I ask twice. The operators run the thing every shift. The managers read what comes out of it.

   They want different things. A system that answers only one of them gets abandoned by the other.

3. 03

   Show the screens first

   For software and automation I build the screens first, with data in them.

   I hand over a document: the requirements I took, the flows, what the project includes and what it does not.

   The customer sees the thing before buying it. Then comes the price.

4. 04

   Build against the document

   When the customer signs, the proposal is already the plan. The scope is on paper and we work through it step by step.

   Some requirements only appear once you are building. They always do. Those go into the plan instead of into an argument.

5. 05

   Demo while changes are cheap

   Before the delivery date the customer watches it run, end to end.

   Changes found at a demo are cheap. Changes found at the install are not.

6. 06

   Install, train, stay reachable

   I install on site. Most of these plants are a drive across Sonora.

   I train the people who will run it, and I stay on the phone afterwards.

   When something breaks, it breaks in a plant that cannot stop. Support here is not a ticket queue.

7. 07

   Estimate against reality

   Once it ships I put the real hours and expenses next to the estimate I made before quoting.

   If they match, the project earned what it should.

   If they do not — extra development, a trip nobody counted — that gap sharpens the next estimate.

   It is the only way quoting stops being a guess.