You are a beginner Freelancer and you may be wondering how to get a quote? As a service provider, it is not mandatory to draw up an estimate for a sale below €1,500. However, it is recommended that you offer one to customers, in order to ensure that you are each protected in the event of a dispute. The quote, once signed by the customer, is worth a contract. It is therefore very important to understand how to make a good estimate, correctly completed.
How to properly quote
Include mandatory information
To make an estimate as a micro-entrepreneur / auto-entrepreneur, it will have to be done in good and due form. It is necessary to establish a free estimate in accordance with the standards. For this, it will be necessary to include this essential information:
- contact details of the service provider (identity and professional address);
- SIRET + number (RCS number for traders or RM + department number for craftsmen);
- customer details (identity and business address);
- date the quote was created;
- unique quote number;
- nature of the sale or provision of services;
- price of each product or service provided excluding VAT (unless the micro-enterprise declares VAT, and this will then be inclusive of VAT);
- net amount payable;
- VAT indication: whether your company is subject to it or not. If this is the case, remember to register your VAT identification number specific to your micro-enterprise;
- date of acceptance by the customer;
- Period of validity of the estimate.
Attach General Conditions of Sale (CGV)
Now you think you know how to get a good quote? Well, don’t go, it’s not over yet! To make a good quote, it is strongly recommended to attach general conditions of sale (CGV). They make it possible to secure the quote by affixing your sales rules. Thus, everything is clear from the start with your client, and this avoids unpleasant surprises and other disputes. To correctly write the T&Cs, it is important not to forget anything and to insert all the mandatory information.
Validate by the customer
When you have finished making an estimate, you will have to send it to the client and wait for him to accept and sign it before starting to work on your mission. The customer’s signature must be preceded by the words “Good for agreement”, for the quote to be valid. duonao
To validate the T&Cs, you can proceed as follows:
- integrate the T&Cs on the back of the quote;
- Add a special mention at the level of the signature of the estimate: “the acceptance of the estimate by the customer implies acceptance, understanding and reading of the attached T&Cs.”
You can make a PDF quote using free quote and invoicing software, and have it digitally signed at Smallpdf.com, or send it by mail.
How to make a quote with adapted pricing
Study the customer’s request
The estimate is generally free, but the question of the pricing of our sales or services is important. Before making an estimate, the customer must be questioned in order to take all the elements into account to choose the right rates to apply.
The partnership
If a client orders you a batch of texts or even mentions a possibility of partnership, you may be able to start negotiating a price and establish an attractive quote. Indeed, we write faster when we write regularly on the same theme. If you write an article a week for a blog of a landscaping company, you will write each piece of text faster and faster. Quite simply because you accumulate a general culture in the sector of green spaces and therefore an ease of writing!
On the contrary, the quote for a one-off, or even unique, writing request should include non-negotiated rates. Indeed, if the request concerns the writing of a 2,000-word article in the field of law, and you only rarely work on this theme, you will take more time to write this order. Firstly because you will not be immediately comfortable with a new subject that is unknown to you and secondly because you will have to find new sources of reliable information.
The technique
When you need to establish an estimate for the writing of a business blog or a web page, it is important to ask the client for several technical details. These details can increase the working time and therefore your rates.
Indeed, the working time will be different depending on whether you are rendering plain text on Word or whether you have to render text with html tags inserted manually. You will also take more time if you have to integrate your text on the client’s CMS such as WordPress or if you have to choose the illustration photos.
Choose the type of pricing
In nonfiction ghostwriting, pricing can be done by the word or by the hour depending on the service provider. However, let’s not forget that customers usually have a business to run and don’t like unpleasant surprises. For this, it is advisable to make an estimate that reassures the customer and pricing by the word is undoubtedly the wisest way to achieve this. Indeed, the client is assured that he will pay for the text at one and the same price, and this, whatever your pace of writing.
What to remember for a good quote
It may seem restrictive to make an estimate as a beginner freelancer, but once all the keys are in hand, the establishment of an estimate will quickly seem essential to you. Making an estimate secures the agreement between you and the customer, provided that it is correctly completed and signed and therefore has legal value. The pricing of your services must also be adapted to the orders, in order to establish a single, correct and definitive estimate and to give a professional image.
