A quote request arrives. Somebody wants a dealer portal, or a shop, or an app. The fastest thing we could do is send a number back the same afternoon. We do not, and the reason is not diligence theatre.
The first read is for what is missing
Almost every request describes a solution. We need an app. Underneath it there is a situation: orders arriving in three places, a spreadsheet that two people edit, a manager retyping the same figures every Friday.
The first thing we do is separate those. Not to be difficult — because the solution someone arrives with is usually the one they have seen elsewhere, and it may not be the one their situation calls for. Sometimes the app is right. Sometimes the honest answer is that a shared record and one properly designed form would fix the actual problem, and that is a smaller piece of work than the one being requested.
We would rather say that at the start than discover it halfway through.
Then we ask the questions that change the price
There is a short list of things that move the number more than anything on a feature list.
Where does the data live now, and who else writes to it? Is there an existing system that must keep working during the change, or can it be switched off? Who inside the business will make decisions while the work is happening? What has to be true on the day it launches, and what can arrive later?
None of these are technical questions and all of them are expensive to answer late. A project that has to keep an old system alive alongside the new one is a different project from a clean start, even when the screens look identical.
The number comes with its own assumptions
When we do send a price, the assumptions come with it, written down. This assumes product data is exported once, at the start. This assumes there is one approver. This assumes the courier rates are the published ones.
That is not a legal shield. It is so that when an assumption turns out to be wrong — and one usually does — both sides can see exactly which one moved, instead of arguing about whether the scope changed.
Occasionally this process ends with us saying we are not the right people, or that it is not worth building yet. That reply is free, and it is the one nobody regrets.