Proposal Questions

I am running a pretty small website and have just been contacted by a VERY large company. They would like for me to provide them the ability to be able to use a certain feature on my site. Sort of like running the tool on my site, but put the feature on their site to run it remotely.

They want me to put a proposal together. I have no problem with the technical aspects of showing them how I can do it and do it well. The problem I have is costing it. I can come up with how much it will cost me to integrate my feature into their site, but don't know what to charge them.

I don't want to cut myself short, but at the same time I don't want to be greedy. I want to price my quote very reasonable. I'd rather cut back on my profit from the job just to get in the door with them because the sheer volume of visitors they have will give my site a major boost. I don't want to under bid though.


My question is how do I determine what my product is worth for them and properly come up with a reasonable cost estimate for them.

First figure out how much time you think it would take to do the integration and whatever else is involved. Set a per hour rate for yourself. Don't undervalue yourself. State the price you think you deserve and stick with it - you are fully entitled to the rewards of the work you do.

Balancing what you should be paid and what you should charge a client isn't easy - I struggle with it regularly. I personally consider my time valuable and you likely should too.

I am happy to hear that you are being reasonable and trying to find an appropriate price range that works for you and this company.

Good luck .

As TAK has said work out how long it'll take and pay yourself a fair rate. Are there any other companies offering a similar service? How much do they charge?

I've undersold myself before to get work with a big company and it's not worth it. If you are happy with the price then pitch it to them, they might say they're not paying that price in which case offer them a scaled down product for the price they want.

Don't forget to include a fee for the software/service itself. Usually integration costs are extra and based based on hours of effort. The software / service fee is usually based on market value provided which also should be estimated and reasonable.

This is the part I struggle with. I'm new to the market I am in and of the few companies that offer this service they don't publish how much they charge for the service.

One of the costs I need to determine is an online support service. If customers have questions or problems, then we would deal with the support. I don't even know where to begin to know what to charge for support. Here is what I came up with

1 - 250 users: $10/day
250 - 500 users: $12/day
500 - 1000 users: $15/day
1000 - 5000 users: $17/day
5000 - 10000 users: $20/day
10000+ users: $25/day

I couldn't find any info on how much a support service should cost. Are these numbers reasonable?

Those support costs look way too low. You can't base support
costs on the number of users. Charge an hourly rate for support
that is related to the time you have to spend on it and how you
value your time.