Free calculator · Services and Quotes
Freelancer and Agency Quote Comparator.
Paste up to three quotes, compare them against twelve standard scope items weighted by risk, and see which gaps are critical and what each one will cost you before you pick on price alone.
Optional, and a first pass only. Pasting the text ticks the items the quote plainly mentions, so you check a shortlist instead of filling in a grid from scratch. A word appearing is not the same as a commitment being made, so read the ticks before you trust them.
| Standard scope item | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| A scoping call before the price, not afterCostly gap if missing | |||
| A written timeline with milestone datesCostly gap if missing | |||
| Code, hosting and domain in your name from day oneCritical gap if missing | |||
| A stated number of revision roundsCostly gap if missing | |||
| A defined post-launch support periodCostly gap if missing | |||
| Content or copywriting, stated as included or notCritical gap if missing | |||
| Basic SEO setup: titles, meta, sitemap, indexingWorth asking if missing | |||
| Mobile and cross-device testingCostly gap if missing | |||
| Documentation or training at handoverWorth asking if missing | |||
| What happens to the source code if you leaveCritical gap if missing | |||
| Hosting, licences and renewals after year oneCostly gap if missing | |||
| Payment schedule tied to delivered milestonesCostly gap if missing |
Tick what each quote actually states. Silence on an item is not the same as it being included — if it is not written down, treat it as not included.
Quote A
0%
of the scope covered, weighted by risk
0 of 12 items stated
Critical gaps: Code, hosting and domain in your name from day one; Content or copywriting, stated as included or not; What happens to the source code if you leave
Quote B
0%
of the scope covered, weighted by risk
0 of 12 items stated
Critical gaps: Code, hosting and domain in your name from day one; Content or copywriting, stated as included or not; What happens to the source code if you leave
Quote C
0%
of the scope covered, weighted by risk
0 of 12 items stated
Critical gaps: Code, hosting and domain in your name from day one; Content or copywriting, stated as included or not; What happens to the source code if you leave
What these gaps cost you
Code, hosting and domain in your name from day one
The single most expensive gap on this list. If the supplier holds the accounts, leaving them costs a rebuild, and you find out at the worst possible moment.
Content or copywriting, stated as included or not
The most common reason a cheap quote is cheap, and the most common reason a project stalls: everyone assumed the other side was writing it.
What happens to the source code if you leave
The exit clause. A quote silent on this can leave you unable to hire anyone else without starting again.
A scoping call before the price, not after
A price set before anyone understood the work is a price that will be revised. Usually upward, usually after you have committed.
A written timeline with milestone dates
Without dates there is no such thing as late, so nothing is ever late. Projects without milestones drift by months, not weeks.
A stated number of revision rounds
Unstated revisions are billed as extra work or refused as out of scope. Either way the argument happens when you are already committed.
A defined post-launch support period
Launch day is when the bugs surface. If support is not in writing, week one becomes a new invoice or a slow reply.
Mobile and cross-device testing
Most of your traffic is on a phone. A build tested only on the designer's laptop fails where it matters most.
Hosting, licences and renewals after year one
A build price that quietly excludes year-two hosting, plugin licences and SSL is a price that grows after you have signed.
Payment schedule tied to delivered milestones
Paying most of it up front removes your only leverage. Payments tied to delivery keep both sides honest.
Basic SEO setup: titles, meta, sitemap, indexing
Retrofitting structure is cheap on a small site and expensive on a large one. Worth naming rather than assuming.
Documentation or training at handover
Without it, every small change is a paid request forever, which is sometimes exactly the supplier's business model.
Enter what you have from each quote. Nothing here is sent anywhere, it runs in your browser.
Estimate done
Want the real number for your project?
An estimate works from typical scope. A quotation works from yours. Send this breakdown over and you get a fixed price back, from the person who would do the work, within one business day.
What this tool measures
Two quotes at very different prices are usually two different scopes wearing the same label. This does not tell you which quote to accept. It tells you what each one is silent on, which is the question price alone cannot answer and the question that decides what the project actually costs by the end.
The list it checks against is not arbitrary. Every item on it is something that has caused a real dispute after a contract was signed, and the ones weighted highest are the ones that are expensive or impossible to fix afterwards.
How to use it
Paste each quote's text and let the tool tick what it plainly mentions, then check those ticks. A keyword match proves the quote used the word, not that the word came with a commitment, and the difference between "includes two revision rounds" and "revisions as required" is exactly where arguments start.
Where a quote is silent, leave it unticked. Silence is not inclusion. If a supplier intended to include something, they can say so in an email in thirty seconds, and now you have it in writing.
Enter prices if you have them. The coverage percentage next to a price is more informative than either on its own.
How to read the result
Coverage is weighted by risk rather than counted. Missing documentation is inconvenient. Missing an answer on who owns the code is potentially a rebuild, so it counts three times as much, and a quote can be missing fewer items and still be the riskier one.
The critical gaps are worth reading out loud before signing anything: ownership, source code and content. Those three explain most of the price difference in most comparisons.
The most complete scope is not automatically the one to sign. A cheaper quote with known gaps is a legitimate choice when you know what you are taking on yourself. The point is to make that a choice rather than a discovery.
What to do next
Send every supplier the same three questions about their own gaps. How each one answers tells you more about working with them than the quote does: a supplier who answers plainly about what is excluded is the one who will handle a problem plainly later.
Then ask each to restate the price with the missing items included. Very often the cheap quote and the expensive quote converge, and the remaining difference is the one worth deciding on.
Questions people ask
Why does code ownership matter so much?
Because it decides whether you can ever leave. If the supplier holds the repository and the hosting accounts, changing supplier means rebuilding, and you find that out at the worst possible moment. It is the most expensive gap on the list by a distance.
Is the cheapest quote always the worst?
No. It is often the most honest about a genuinely small scope. The problem is not a cheap quote, it is a cheap quote compared against an expensive one as though they described the same work.
What if a quote covers everything?
Then price and fit are the real questions, which is where you wanted to be. Check the timeline is written with dates and that payments are tied to delivered milestones rather than to the calendar.
Does the paste feature read my quote accurately?
It looks for the words each item usually appears under, and it is a first pass to save you filling a grid from scratch. It cannot judge whether a mention is a commitment, which is why every tick stays editable.
Where to go from here
- Website Cost Calculator — a defensible range to hold these quotes against before you compare them to each other.
- Project Requirements Brief Generator — send the same brief to everyone and the quotes become comparable in the first place.
- Retainer vs Project Decision Tool — if the quotes differ on project versus retainer, this is the arithmetic behind that choice.
Built by GoDesign FZE, who quote and deliver digital projects.
Get in touch
Want someone to just do this part?
The tool is free and stays free. If you would rather hand the work over, tell us what you are dealing with and you get a straight answer on scope, cost and timeline.
- You own everythingRepository, hosting and domain credentials sit in your name from day one, not handed over at the end.
- A written timelineMilestone dates are agreed in writing before work starts, so you always know what ships next.
- One business dayEvery enquiry gets a reply from the person who would scope the work, not a sales sequence.
Media City, Dubai, UAE · DHA Phase 2, Islamabad, Pakistan
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