A semi-useful rant for anyone who's ever had to “just pencil in a number.”

You know the email:

“Hey! Quick favour... we’re pitching on a site build and need a dev estimate to include in the proposal. We don’t have wireframes or access to the client yet, but here’s the sitemap. Can you send us a number by end of day?”

It’s not malicious. It’s not even rare. Honestly, it’s just… Tuesday.

We know the situation well. You’re working off limited info, maybe the project is part of a competitive bid, maybe it’s a returning client, maybe it’s just the end of the quarter and you’ve got a this project-shaped hole in your forecast. We’re not judging. We’re here with you.

But here’s the thing: sitemaps are not scopes.

They’re a starting point, sure. But estimating development based on a list of URLs is like pricing a house based on how many rooms it has, without knowing if one of them is an indoor pool and the other is a VR cave.

Give us anything that helps us picture what’s actually being built, and we can give you a much smarter estimate or better yet, a range with a discovery phase baked in to validate the direction.

I know, we sound like a broken record. But just like your design team wouldn’t dream of quoting a new branding package without understanding the client, we can’t scope accurately if the functionality is still a mystery.

If your client is asking for “a quick quote” before they’ve even shared the full brief, set the expectation that technical discovery is part of the process. It protects you. It protects us. And most importantly, it protects your budget when things start getting real.

We know sometimes you just don’t have the answers yet. The client’s being cagey. The pitch is due tomorrow. The strategy deck isn’t done. The content doesn’t exist. The Figma file is named something like "homepage_final_v.8_draft". We’ve been there. We’re still there. And we still love you.

So, here’s the deal: if you’re flying blind, tell us. We can usually give you a range, not for the proposal, but for your own sanity. A rough “low if it's basic, high if it's bananas” estimate based on what little we do know. You can use that to pressure-test the budget internally before you go committing to anything.
But please, for the love of spreadsheets and sleep, don’t drop it into a fixed-bid proposal without at least a caveat.

Something like:
“Development estimate based on current assumptions. Subject to change pending technical discovery.”

Even better, bake in a line item for technical discovery and call it what it is: essential due diligence. Not fluff. Not padding. Just the part where we figure out what this thing actually is before promising to build it. And if that still feels like too much to ask? At least forward us the email chain where the client says, “It’s a simple site.” We’ll print it out and keep it in our famous last words file.

J.