Civil Engineering fees

[JohnB001]

Hi everyone,


I'm a civil engineer who recently took the leap and started my own civil engineering firm. It's been a great experience so far, but I’m still figuring out the business side of things—especially when it comes to pricing.


I’m looking for some advice on how to estimate fees for site development projects. Are there any rules of thumb, spreadsheets, or general guidelines that can help with putting together fair and competitive proposals?


Back when I was working as an employee, I mainly focused on the design work and never really dealt with estimating hours or putting together proposals. Now, I can break down tasks like grading, drainage, erosion control, etc., and estimate hours reasonably well—but once the project gets large, I start second-guessing everything. It’s easy to overthink each lead, and trying to come up with detailed proposals for every opportunity is becoming really time-consuming.


Right now, I’ve set my hourly rate at $120/hr (I work from home with very little overhead), but I’d love to hear if that seems reasonable.


I’ve just been approached about a large-scale project, and I really don’t know what a typical ballpark fee should look like for something big. Any tips, especially from other solo practitioners or small firms, would be super helpful.


Thanks in advance!

 

[SWComposites]

Suggest you search thru the Engineering Business Practices forum where this has been discussed in several threads.

 

[IRstuff]

Does your hourly rate accurately reflect your total overhead? While you may have low overhead, it's not absolutely zero; you should be paying for

• health insurance
• taxes
• utilities
• internet
• software subscriptions
• maintenance of current building codes, etc.
• computer hardware, etc.
• hours worked on proposals that didn't come to fruition
• possibly research and development

 

[jhnblgr]

Take the amount of time you think each task will take and multiply it by 3.

Most of it comes from experience, nothing ever is as quick as you think. Also remember to have time for review and quality control. Keep in mind touch time, will the client keep the project moving forward at a good pace or will they drag their feet? The more you have to go from one job to the next without closing it out cost a lot of time which is money. Know the client, are the reasonable, do they keep to schedule, do they provide input promptly, do they pay on time, do they think micro manage?

Choosing the right client is key and knowing when to walk.

 

[Mark_Markus]

Double your initial estimate—you’ll still undervalue your work

 

[LittleInch]

When I look at projects to guess hours (there is not a huge amount of science in this), I do it two ways.

Bottom up is to look at what you are being asked to deliver and then price each one. So reports 40 hrs, big drawing 60, small repeat details 5 etc etc.

Add in meetings and site visits.

That usually ends up with a big number.

Then think how long physically it will take (days, weeks etc), multiply by number of people or man hours per week and see what that total is.

There are so many variables that no one system works for each project and in many cases you just need to make sure you don't starve or lose your house and do the job and learn from it. Of course go too high and you won't get any work.

Variables include your experience level of previous jobs where you can fine tune things/ use repeat details or report formats, type of contract or sub contract, willingness of the client to accept variations, schedule, complexity, level of changes made from beginning to end, number of revisions your contract allows for, review period, insurance costs, etc