Project estimates
Before starting a project, it's reasonable to want a sense of what you're getting into. An Estimate gives you that: the approximate size of the work and the approximate investment, as a Low, Mid, and High range. This page explains what an estimate contains, how to read it, and why it can change.
We give you the best planning information we reasonably can with what's known today, and we're open about the fact that software contains uncertainty.
Why we estimate
- You deserve a sense of scale. Knowing whether a project is a modest addition or a major undertaking helps you decide whether and how to start.
- A range helps you plan. You can budget, decide what matters most, and choose what to build first, before and during discovery.
- Software contains uncertainty. A single precise number would suggest more certainty than anyone has before the work begins. An honest range is more useful than a false exact figure.
What an estimate looks like
Here is a fictional example. The summary at the top is the part most clients care about: Low, Mid, and High, each in capacity units and approximate dollars. Below it, each Feature shows what we currently expect to build and what we're assuming. Hover over or tap a size to see its range.
A small home-services company replaces its phone-and-spreadsheet scheduling with an online portal.
Approximate investment at Exalynt Managed prices ($2,000 per unit). A planning range, not a quote.
Office staff and technicians sign in with their existing Microsoft 365 accounts.
- Only people in the company's Microsoft 365 organization can sign in.
- Office staff can mark a person as a dispatcher or a technician.
- The company's Microsoft 365 tenant permits the required sign-in access.
- Low
- 1
- Mid
- 2
- High
- 3
Customers can request a service appointment online.
- Customers can choose a service type and a preferred time window.
- Customers receive an email confirmation when their request is received.
- Customers can cancel an appointment up to a day before it starts.
- Customers cannot book outside the company's service hours.
- The company offers a short, fixed list of service types.
- Low
- 3
- Mid
- 4
- High
- 6
Dispatchers can assign technicians to scheduled service appointments.
- Dispatchers can see each technician's schedule for the day and week.
- Dispatchers can assign and reassign appointments.
- The system warns a dispatcher before double-booking a technician.
- Technicians can see only their own assigned appointments.
- Travel time between appointments does not need to be calculated.
- Low
- 6
- Mid
- 8
- High
- 12
Customers receive a text reminder the day before their appointment.
- The system sends a reminder text the afternoon before each appointment.
- Customers can reply to confirm or ask to reschedule.
- The company is comfortable using a standard SMS provider such as Twilio.
- Low
- 1
- Mid
- 2
- High
- 3
Completed appointments become invoices in the company's accounting system.
- Marking an appointment complete creates a draft invoice in QuickBooks Online.
- Office staff can review and send the invoice from QuickBooks.
- The system flags any appointment whose invoice failed to sync.
- QuickBooks Online's API supports the company's invoice layout.
- Existing customer records in QuickBooks do not need to be cleaned up or migrated.
- Low
- 6
- Mid
- 8
- High
- 12
- The portal is a web app that works well on phones; no app-store app is needed.
- The company's existing website only needs a link to the portal, not a redesign.
What an estimate contains
- Project: the broader outcome you want, such as "replace phone-and-spreadsheet scheduling with an online portal."
- Features: the pieces of the project that give you or your users something recognizable, each described in one plain sentence, such as "Customers can request a service appointment online."
- Capabilities: short statements of what a Feature can or cannot do, such as "Customers cannot book outside the company's service hours." Together they outline what we currently understand the Feature to include.
- Assumptions: short statements of what the estimate depends on, such as "The company is comfortable using a standard SMS provider." They make uncertainty visible without a long specification.
- T-shirt sizes: each Feature is sized S, M, L, or XL based on how much capacity and uncertainty it carries. Sizes are intentionally coarse.
- Low, Mid, and High in capacity units: the same units that measure blocks. Flex is 1 unit, Core is 2 units, and Dedicated is 4 units. Units measure engineering capacity, not hours.
- Low, Mid, and High approximate investment: the units multiplied by the per-unit price for your plan, $2,000 on Exalynt Managed or $2,250 on Self Managed.
The dollar figures are approximate partly because of how blocks are priced: Flex and Core include a small fragmentation premium, so the final amount depends on which block sizes you choose along the way (details).
How to read Low, Mid, and High
| Point | What it means |
|---|---|
| Low | The work goes favorably within the scope and assumptions as we currently understand them. |
| Mid | The engineer's current planning expectation, based on what we know today. |
| High | Reasonable additional complexity, edge cases, or uncertainty turns up while building the scope as it's currently described. |
None of the three is a guarantee. All three describe the scope and assumptions written in the estimate. If those change, we update the range with you.
A practical way to budget is to plan around Mid and make sure High would still work for you.
What an estimate is, and what it isn't
| An estimate is | It isn't |
|---|---|
| A planning range to help you budget and prioritize | A quote or fixed price |
| Our best professional judgment of the work as described today | A guaranteed final cost |
| A snapshot of the Features and Capabilities we currently imagine | A promise that they'll stay the same; seeing working software often changes your mind, and that's good |
| A sense of the size of the work | A deadline or delivery date |
Why an estimate can change
An estimate reflects what's known when it's written. It changes when we learn something that matters:
- New Capabilities. You decide a Feature should do more.
- Changed assumptions. Something we assumed turns out not to be true.
- Newly discovered constraints, technical, organizational, or regulatory.
- Changed priorities. Your business needs shift, and so does what's worth building.
- External limits. A third-party system behaves differently than expected or can't do what we need.
- Discovery. Building part of the project shows that what needs to be built is materially different.
Changes go both ways. Discovery sometimes reveals a simpler path, or that a Feature isn't needed at all. Either way, we tell you what changed and why, update the estimate, and you decide what to do next.
How Exalynt limits your risk
An estimate gives you orientation. It doesn't ask for a large upfront commitment.
- You still buy capacity one block at a time. You never purchase the whole estimate at once. See Working with Exalynt.
- You decide at every checkpoint. At the end of each iteration you see what was built and learned, and choose whether to continue, change direction, or stop.
- New information shapes the plan before you commit more. If priorities or the estimate change, you know before buying the next block.
- Each block's price is fixed. If work inside a block takes longer than planned, Exalynt absorbs it. See Sharing risk.
Curious how estimates are made? Exalynt engineers follow a shared process, described in Creating project estimates.
Frequently asked questions
Is an estimate a quote?
No. A quote commits to a fixed price for a fixed scope. An estimate is a planning range based on what's known today, and you still buy capacity one block at a time.
Do I have to buy the whole estimated project up front?
No. You buy one block at a time and decide at each checkpoint whether to continue. You can stop after any iteration and keep everything built so far.
Which number should I budget for?
Plan around Mid, the engineer's current planning expectation, and make sure High would still be workable. Low is what the work could take if everything goes favorably.
What happens if the project starts heading past the estimate?
We tell you as soon as we see it, not at the end. Usually it means the scope or an assumption has changed, so we update the estimate and explain why. You then decide whether to continue, simplify, reprioritize, or stop.
Does an estimate tell me when the project will be finished?
No. An estimate describes the size of the work, not a schedule. How quickly that capacity is applied depends on the block sizes you choose each iteration.
Why capacity units instead of hours?
Exalynt sells capacity in blocks, not hours, and blocks are measured in capacity units. Estimating in the same units means an estimate lines up with how you'll actually buy the work. See Engineering Capacity.