> If you end up saying, "Well, that was just an estimate. It actually took 200 hours, so you owe me $30,000," they might pay, but they won't hire you again
This bears repeating. Has anyone else noticed how the business world has redefined "estimate" into exactly the opposite meaning? Now it means, more often than not, an exact number etched in concrete for the beancounters to lock in their costs. In my previous job at a financial software consulting company, we developers learned to fear any call for an estimate. We even frequently had conversations from management that went "give me an estimate for this development, and the client has already approved a ten day work order so your estimate needs to be exactly ten days."
It's helpful if you let people know as early as possible if you're going to go over the estimate by a substantial amount. In the example in the grandparent comment, I can understand why the client would be unhappy paying $30,000 for a project that was estimated at $15,000 if they didn't find out until the very end. Imagine if you had to get your car fixed and when you went to pay the bill it was twice as much as the estimate, and compare that to the experience of getting a call part way through to inform you that the fixes will be more expensive than originally estimated.
This bears repeating. Has anyone else noticed how the business world has redefined "estimate" into exactly the opposite meaning? Now it means, more often than not, an exact number etched in concrete for the beancounters to lock in their costs. In my previous job at a financial software consulting company, we developers learned to fear any call for an estimate. We even frequently had conversations from management that went "give me an estimate for this development, and the client has already approved a ten day work order so your estimate needs to be exactly ten days."