Skip to content

Project estimator

Website project estimator

Quote a website build from your own hours and rate. List the pages, forms, setup and extras, set how complex each one is, and get a clear estimate with discovery, revisions, testing, launch and contingency added, a deposit schedule, and a printable quote for your client.

WDS / Project estimator Ready
1. The project
Every price is your hours times this rate.
Printed on the estimate only. Never saved.
Two or three plain sentences the client will read at the top of the estimate.
2. Your hours

Your own hours for each kind of work. Nothing is filled in for you.

Page size is the number of content sections on the page. The header and footer are built once for the whole site, so they are not counted.

Anything bigger is a large page.
Connecting another service, such as email marketing or booking.
One post, product or page moved from the old site.
3. Design, copy, dynamic content and complexity

Each line uses these unless you change it on the line. Uplifts are percentages added to a line’s hours. Leave a box blank for no change.

Copy is priced in hours per section, because copy takes as long as there is content to write, however hard the page is to build.
Placing and formatting their copy.
Your time briefing and placing their copy. Add their fee as a third-party cost line.
Posts, listings or fields your builder can show on its own.

Line hours = base hours x quantity x (1 + design uplift + dynamic uplift) x (1 + complexity) + copy hours per section x sections x quantity. Uplifts add to each other; complexity multiplies the build. One-off setup lines skip the switches.

4. Line items

Add one line per page or item. Pages need a section count; forms, popups, integrations and migrated items use your hours per item unless you type hours on the line. Use "Third-party cost" for things you buy for the client, such as a plugin license or a copywriter’s fee.

    5. Discovery, management, revisions, testing and contingency
    Calls, research and planning before the build.
    A share of the production hours for emails, meetings and admin.
    An allowance for the unexpected, on all the hours above.
    6. Price and payments
    Percentages separated by a slash, for example 50/50 or 40/30/30.
    Leave blank for: deposit, design approved (for three payments), on completion.
    Shown as optional on the estimate, not added to the total.

    Not sure what to charge for care? Work it out with the care plan calculator.

    7. On the printed estimate
    Revision rounds, your hourly rate for extra work and how pages are sized are added for you.
    For example logo design, stock photos or ongoing updates.
    8. Your details for the estimate (optional)

    Printed at the top of the page. Please do not type client details here.

    Your estimate

    Everything is worked out from your own hours and rate, in your browser. Nothing is sent to our server and nothing is saved: print the estimate, or copy or download it as CSV, to keep it.

    How it works

    What this checks

    • Priced line by line Pages sized by their content sections, plus forms, popups, integrations, content migration, setup work and costs you pass on at cost.
    • The hidden hours counted Discovery, project management, revisions, testing, launch, training and contingency added as your own percentages, so they are never forgotten.
    • Your numbers, not ours No market rates are built in. Every hour, rate and percentage is yours, with an optional minimum fee, rounding and tax.
    • Deposit schedule Split the total into up to six payments, such as a deposit, a midpoint payment and a final payment at launch.
    • Print, PDF or CSV A clean printable estimate with your name on it, ready to save as a PDF, plus a CSV for your spreadsheet. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

    Related field guides

    Run the full website checkup

    Search the field manual

    What is going wrong?

    Or jump straight to a symptom

    Press / to search from any page, Esc to close