A huge TK with a bunch of details, how to quickly evaluate?

Question

Freelance

The customer sends a technical specification and asks to estimate the cost of development, but there is such a technical specification that you need to sit and evaluate for more than an hour. How to proceed in such a case? Take money for an appraisal? And if you don’t take it and the customer doesn’t like the price, then you can kill a lot of time for various technical specifications. How can you roughly estimate a large TK for a minimum period?

Answer 1

So it is possible, as you suggest to us: without looking.
I can say without looking: this is good, suitable TK, ask for 10 tons of green.

Answer 2

Not technical specifications, but understanding the task is the main thing
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Answer 3

The obvious answer is not to name the exact amount, just go over your eyes and figure it out, then name the range of 1x-2x from what you counted.
If the customer has already continued communication and is interested in you, then consider in detail. It also helps me personally to just quickly google what kind of person, and understand that I won’t work with him, then I’ll call 3x to get off.

Answer 4

You can apply different strategies depending on the situation.
If the probability of ordering is high or the volume is clearly not large, you can conduct a full assessment and include the time spent in the final cost. Or you can leave out this time if you want.
If the assessment is difficult and the likelihood of an order is not clear, you can conduct a superficial assessment, directly point out this fact and explain that you can make a more accurate assessment after you are approved as a performer / candidate / after receiving any other information that will make you understand that you will not spend too much time wasted.

Answer 5

Offer a fixed price per hour of work - this is one of the most common work schemes, especially in the west.
For example, you offer to pay for 3 months of development, for these 3 months, for example, you undertake to make 2-3 releases, what you can do is what you can do, for the rest you need to form an additional agreement.
And as for the estimated cost of the project - well, you evaluate it every month at a price, and sell it, without fixing and guaranteeing the product, because the product can have a different level of development, you are not satisfied with the first level of development, go to the next iteration, add one more month work, and so on, as long as the client wants to develop the product.
It is necessary to come to some kind of agreement about whether he is ready to take on a contractor, and that the contractor is ready to perform what amount of work.
I understand the customer wants to shift all the risks to the contractor, but objectively this is not possible.