Turn a project brief into a sustainable proposal amount. The calculator covers target compensation for delivery and administrative hours, adds direct project expenses, and protects the estimate with a contingency percentage. It then shows the required proposal total, client-facing rate per delivery hour, and the contingency amount so you can explain and review your pricing assumptions.
The result is the minimum project quote implied by your compensation, cost, and risk assumptions—not a guarantee that the market will accept it.
If the scope changes materially, revise the estimate rather than relying on contingency to absorb unlimited additions.
Eighty delivery hours plus 12 admin hours at $85 equals $7,820 in labor. Add $600 expenses for an $8,420 base; a 15% contingency produces a required proposal of $9,683.
Communication, planning, invoicing, and handoff are real project work and consume available earning time.
No. Contingency protects against uncertainty; profit requires a separate margin or a higher compensation target.
Yes, if they are project-specific and not already included in your hourly compensation assumption.
The per-delivery-hour secondary result can guide presentation, but it includes admin time, costs, and contingency.
The total can still be calculated from admin work, but the per-delivery-hour result is not defined and displays a dash.
| Input | Meaning | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated delivery hours | User-entered planning assumption | hours |
| Admin and communication hours | User-entered planning assumption | hours |
| Target compensation per work hour | User-entered planning assumption | USD |
| Direct project expenses | User-entered planning assumption | USD |
| Contingency | User-entered planning assumption | % |