How to estimate website project cost when relatively inexperienced?

Worse still, my client is non-technical and keeps asking for updates while remaining cagey about cost/ trying to lowball instead of considering technical difficulties. How does one proceed?I'm no expert, but... run away.

the only thing you will get out of fixed price billing for this project is a very intimate understanding of why you shouldn't do fixed price billing.

We literally just had this exact same sort of situation come in our office, on a much larger enterprise client, for a much larger project. It's not in our wheelhouse. We're a PHP shop, and they're asking us to integrate the interfaces of two different systems, both written in nasty Java with the ZK framework and Zul files with inline CSS and business logic and all sorts of nastiness. This is a $100k+ project, and I went to a meeting this morning and explained that this wasn't a good fit for us. Fortunately, we had some alternatives that would work for them, that would make it a better fit, and the client is fantastic and understands where we're coming from and trusting us, but what you're describing is a horrible client in the making. This is someone that will drive you nuts, lowball and nickle and dime, not understand why things take longer than you initially said (because as you get further into the awful code, the more you realize it's awful and horrible to work with and reverse engineer, etc) and the project will VERY LIKELY grow to be VERY UNPROFITABLE very quickly. YOU WILL LOSE MONEY ON THIS PROJECT is what I'm saying. Django's Python. It's nothing to do with the PHP this thing is written in, so you can't just reuse ANY of the existing code. You'll have to work backwards to fully spec the thing out, make sure you're bringing over the core functionality, and you'll have to do so on a budget. Let's look seriously at your 100 hour estimate. That's 2.5 weeks. You're saying that in 12.5 days you can have all this done? The reverse-engineering is work. It shouldn't be free. The confirming the specifications is work. The actual coding the entire thing in a completely different framework is work. So is validation. So is migration. So is any sort of design, or porting the existing application's design over. AND WE AREN'T EVEN TO NEW FEATURES YET! What you're describing isn't a small project. It's definitely not an "actual 100 hour" project. It's more likely something you quote 100 hours on, run to 250 or 300 or 450 hours, and then have to battle every step of the way for coming in so far over. The client has already been through this, doesn't trust developers, and it's because no one is giving it to him straight. Don't be the guy whose eyes are too big for his stomach, unless you're literally nearly on the streets and need the money. Instead, set and manage expectations at every single step. ALWAYS segment your quotes. Try to stay away from fixed bidding and explain that you're estimating things will take "between X and Y hours, probably on the higher end". Make sure X and Y are 3 times what you reasonably think they'll actually take. Keep him up to date every week so that the expectation management is a consistent, persistent process and not "better to ask forgiveness" because you won't get it. (For values of "forgiveness" that = more money.) There is such a thing as a bad client. There are clients that take up disproportionate amounts of your time, focus, energy, and sanity, and give nothing back. The "experience" is nice, I suppose, but only in the sense of fulfilling one of my favorite quotes: "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." This is a bad judgment moment. You will end up regretting taking this project if you don't change your approach (and quote) entirely. You will feel bad because you are a good person and don't want to abandon the client or keep charging him. So YOU will end up eating it on HIS project because of HIS unreasonable demands and YOUR integrity. This is a mistake. Either run away from it entirely ("sorry, but I don't think I'm a good fit and that I can do what you're looking to have done within this budget, and I don't want to set unrealistic expectations and not meet them") or significantly alter your approach with him so that there are real milestones and a real budget involved. I'd honestly opt for the former. Learn the lesson of saying no to bad-fit clients now. It's a lesson I've taken literally 10 years to really learn. And I've never once come out better for those clients, except that I know what to FULLY AVOID and turn away now.

No offense, but you sound totally out of your depth as a consultant. You don't even know what you don't know about this project. Under no circumstances should you do this as a fixed bid. Aside from exhorting you to flee, my next best advice is to find a more experienced consultant, bring them the project, and ask them to take you under their wing and mentor you through it.

Wow. Run away. If you're estimating 100 hours (2.5 weeks) to basically rewrite an entire site into python from PHP with extra features, you do not have the experience do do this yourself. If his budget is 5-6k, at the high end, thats only 50 bucks an hour as a consultant, which in my world (as a web dev who has been doing this for ages, but living in an area with a high cost of living) is a serious lowball. I'm on my phone and rushed, otherwise I'd go into a long spiel of how i do estimates. But the short version is break it down into tasks, estimate time and risk, multiply those together, and double the whole thing. Document all those features, as well as all assumptions as a 'contract' and any feature creep is met with a new estimate of cost. Also -- why django? Is he just looking for a 'modern framework'? Is that the one you suggested, or him? Ugh. There are just so many things wrong with this. Unless you seriously have no other options, and would be willing to work for months for the 5k, I'd just walk away. But on the other hand, horrible clients and projects like this is something we all do at least once in our careers as freelance web devs... It's how you learn when to run away. Good luck!

This will end extraordinarily badly. Leave. If you wish to help this client, I suggest that you instead try to find an existing service such as BigCartel or Shopify that covers 90% of their needs, and recommend it to them, and THEN leave. I would not, under any circumstance, take this engagement. There is very little chance that it will create business value for the client, and a very high chance that you will lose money, reputation, and time. Nobody will be happy. This is not a 100 hour project. And it is definitely not a $6,000 project. Explain to the client that upon further consideration, you've determined that you're not a good fit for the project. Move on.

I've been writing PHP code for more than a decade and I've seen it done very well and very poorly. An entire app written in spaghetti PHP could easily take more than 100 hours to fully trace and convert to a manageable MVC spec. A previous project involved converting a pretty decent MVC PHP app to Ruby on Rails. That project took more than 100 hours despite the fact that I wrote the original PHP app and knew it inside and out. The fact that you've already got part of the app in Django and part in PHP is not a plus, it is a giant, blinking red flag. Knowing only what I've seen in this question, I wouldn't be surprised to see this be a 300+ hour project, start to finish.

1) This isn't a great short-term deal for you 2) DO IT Having done projects like this for years, I would not agree to the 100hours nor the $5k. However, you should take this for the EXPERIENCE. You'll better understand where you made incorrect assumptions, etc. You'll learn. The next project will be better. The low $ is for your inexperience in managing a project. That's OK! Once you do a few you will get better and better, have proven yourself - you will get referrals and more work.

This sounds like a bad client, can you contact some of the previous developers and ask them for advice. My guess is you will have a tough time getting paid if you take this on. Fatbird has it, this is business, structure this into agreed milestones on a T&M basis with payments at each milestone, do not proceed until you have received all outstanding payments. Further set a credit limit of say $1000, do not allow this client to owe you more than this at any stage. I do not expect the client to agree to this and that would be OK by me. Even if you get paid at each milestone, you will probably not get paid for the final one so make ongoing support and enhancement (inclduding cooperation with successive developers) dependant on being paid on full.