Quoting for a project with closed source [closed]

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I sit with a project that I need to quote, and until the job is awarded, I can only use "View source" to check, and ask a few questions about the system. That makes quoting outright impossible for me to do.

My question is: how do one go about quoting for such a project? What kind of questions should I ask? Do I decline to quote? Due to uncertainty, do I pad my quote?

Answer 1

This is a normal problem with running as a freelancer - you have to take a risk and quote accordingly. Its the same for every business, that requirements come in and you have to estimate the cost of delivering them, sometimes you'll get it right, sometimes you'll get it wrong, the idea is that overall you'll make enough money to make it all worthwhile.

So, accept the risk and increase your quote accordingly.

Answer 2

You can always ask to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and ask to view the code or at least a sample of it.

You should also be focusing on the business problem rather than the technical aspect. If this is legacy PHP code, you're taking a risk and so is the business and you should be charging as much as possible: double your current rate because the risk is high.

Answer 3

Thoroughly document any assumptions you make in preparing the quote - say you quote ten days and it takes twenty due to circumstances you couldn't have foreseen, you don't want the client owning paying for ten days. Having the assumptions documented might even prompt further (hopefully useful) discussion.