I've been approached by a mid-size company looking to develop something similar to a shareware project I have available out there.<p>How does one go about valuing this kind of work?<p>The project is supposed to take 4-6 weeks to complete. The project is C++ development in a specific field (Wifi). I'm leveraging my existing code (say 50%) to build their product.<p>Some thoughts and pointers would be great.
Price it based on the value to them, not on how many hours it takes you to create. If it means they can cut costs by $5000 per month, price based on that. A good example is hotel reservation/booking systems. It only takes a few days to integrate one into a website and tie it with the hotel's in-house system, but you wouldn't charge them a few hundred dollars. Instead, you charge them a percentage of every booking, because it means fewer calls to their reservation line (= money saved).
Lots of variables:<p>Who owns the rights to the product when you're done? You or them? That should be a factor in the pricing, of course.<p>Do you have a clear spec? (If the answer is no, get one or make one.)<p>How confident are you in your time-estimate of 4-6 weeks? Do you feel comfortable taking the risk (i.e., doing it for a fixed price), or do you want to push the risk to them (i.e., work on it at an agreed-upon hourly rate, for however long it takes)?