How much should I charge a client for the development of some Twitter analytics software, essentially a more customized/granular but simpler version of the as yet unreleased Twitter Publisher Analytics? I'm pretty inexperienced as to pricing in this business.
estimate the number of hours you expect it to take to build, then triple that, and multiply by your hourly rate. Break down the cost of the project by each major feature as a line item, and if the client pushes back on the price, DO NOT LOWER YOUR HOURLY RATE...instead, remove features to lower the price
Agreed. I almost always double my estimates, and if it's a bigger unknown project, triple it. You can do fixed cost, but make sure that you have a fixed set of features that you both agree on and an hourly rate for scope creep (which will happen as soon as they see anything). Or keep it entirely hourly, in which case, some scope creep might be welcome on your end.
