Free project price calculator
This free project price calculator turns your hourly rate into a fixed project price you can defend: list the parts of the job with honest hours for each, add a risk buffer and the project’s expenses, and it gives you two numbers — the quote, and the floor beneath it. The formula is one line: hours × rate, plus a buffer for the risk you absorb, plus expenses, rounded to a clean figure.
Build the price
Project parts
New to the rate itself? Work it out first with the hourly rate calculator — a fixed quote built on a guessed rate is a guess twice over. On this device, that rate is then prefilled here.
Your fixed price
The number to quote — labour, buffer and expenses, rounded the way you chose.
| Total estimated hours | 0 |
| Labour (hours × rate) | $0.00 |
| Risk buffer (20%) | $0.00 |
| Project expenses | $0.00 |
| Before rounding | $0.00 |
Add your rate and at least one part with hours, and this line shows how much overrun your buffer absorbs.
Worked example
The worked example from our guide to fixed fee vs hourly pricing, run through this calculator: a web designer, Priya, quoting a five-page website for a bakery, Willow & Oak, at $90 an hour — six parts, a 20% buffer for a familiar job with a new client, $100 of expenses, and the quote rounded to the nearest $50. Enter those numbers above and the calculator returns exactly this:
| Parts: 4 + 6 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 2 hours | 30 hours |
| Labour (30 × $90) | $2,700.00 |
| Risk buffer (20%) | $540.00 |
| Expenses (stock photos $60, domain and hosting setup $40) | $100.00 |
| Before rounding | $3,340.00 |
| Quote (rounded to nearest $50) | $3,350 |
| Floor (labour + expenses, no buffer) | $2,800.00 |
| Hours the quote covers at $90/hr | 36.1 hrs |
Read the two headline numbers the way Priya does. The $550 between the floor and the quote is the price of certainty, split both ways: the client pays it to cap their cost, she earns it for carrying the estimation risk — at $90 an hour the quote covers the job running to 36.1 hours, so the buffer absorbs 6.1 hours of overrun before the job starts costing her money. And if the bakery haggles, she knows the conversation ends at $2,800: below the floor, the answer is a smaller scope, not a smaller price.
How the number works
- Price parts, not a lump. A single guessed total hides where the time goes. Six honest part-estimates — from your last similar job, revision rounds and waiting time included — add up to a number you can explain to yourself, which is the only explanation that matters before a negotiation starts.
- Hours first, rate second. The build-up is your hourly maths with the estimation risk priced in, not a different kind of maths. If you do not have a rate you trust, stop and set one — every fixed quote inherits the quality of the rate underneath it.
- The buffer prices risk, and only risk. Around 10% for work you have done many times, 20% for familiar work with new details, up to 30% for new territory. It exists so an overrun is a normal week rather than unpaid work — and it is not a pot for scope additions, which are priced separately, before they start.
- Know the floor before you negotiate. The floor — labour plus expenses, no buffer — is the lowest price at which the job still pays its way. A client who pushes below it is not asking for a discount; they are asking you to subsidise the project. Cut scope to meet a budget, never the floor.
- Rounding is presentation, not padding. $3,350 reads like a price; $3,340.00 reads like a timesheet. Round to a clean figure — the difference is cents, and it keeps the client’s eye on the outcome instead of the arithmetic.
The calculator finds the number; the documents carry it. Put the quote into a client-facing estimate while the scope is still forming, fix the boundary with a scope of work, and send the firm version as a proposal — the method behind each step is our guide to fixed fee vs hourly pricing.