How much to bid on a job.

Take a lesson from the advertising agency business, here is an excerpt from an article about calculating cost for a new agency client:

Pricing at a Top 25 agency is fairly easy using several proven formulas. Just figure out the staffing plan and multiply each salary by % time. Then add up the allocated salaries and multiply the total base by 2.5 or 3.0 or whatever you can get. While there may be some haggling, you'll at least be in the ballpark because scale and precedent are on your side.

The article goes on to explain tat for a smaller firm it can be more difficult. This is the same kind of problem that can plague freelancers. Sometimes there is just hours to bill, but how do you charge for experience and ideas?

Here is one great tip offered by Barker:

Small, independent agencies offer a built-in savings of about 40% over the big guys. The factors driving this efficiency are lower general agency overhead, streamlined processes, less dead wood and no publicly traded parents eating 20% of the cake. But that's where the savings should end. Don't discount the value of your ideas. Great ideas should be reasonably expensive, whether they come from a midtown tower or a downtown loft.

Read the original article on Adage here, it has a lot of great points and may help you determine your projects.