A vague client ask broken into phases, tasks, effort ranges, and a price you can defend line by line. Describe what the client wants and a Taskade Genesis app returns a scoping table: workstreams, the hours behind each, who does them, the risk loading, and three pricing shapes so you can choose between fixed fee, phased, and retainer before you speak to the client again.
The Pricing Calculator is a live Taskade Genesis app embedded on this page, built around exactly the kind of priced, weighted line items an estimate needs. Use it here, then click "Use this app" to clone it in about ten seconds and describe your own engagement so the rows become your workstreams, your day rates, and your contingency.
Consultants underprice because they estimate the work they can picture and forget the work they cannot. The app fixes that by making the invisible work visible: coordination, review cycles, stakeholder wrangling, data cleanup, and the second draft nobody budgets for. Workspace DNA turns each estimate into evidence for the next one. Memory keeps what you quoted and what it actually took. Intelligence, backed by 15+ frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-weight providers, proposes effort ranges, sanity-checks them against your history, and explains its reasoning per line. Execution converts the approved estimate into the scope and the delivery plan without retyping.
The estimate renders wherever you need it:
- Table view for the effort grid with low, likely, and high hours per workstream
- List view for the plain-language phase narrative you send the client
- Gantt view for how long the engagement really runs once dependencies are honest
- Board view for tracking estimate versions from draft to approved
- Plus the rest of the 7 project views
Automations close the loop between estimate and reality. Connect Taskade automations so time logged against a workstream updates the variance column, and a workstream tracking twenty percent over its estimate raises a flag while there is still time to talk about it. With 100+ bidirectional integrations, your calendar and time entries pull actuals in while Slack and Gmail push the variance alert and the revised number out.
The AI agents inside the app carry 34 built-in tools including web search, file analysis, persistent memory, custom slash commands, and multi-agent collaboration. Ask the estimating agent to argue against your own number and it will list the assumptions that would have to hold for the price to work, which is the fastest way to find the one that will not.
Clone it, invite your associates to estimate their own lines, and the pricing history stays yours. Every engagement you deliver makes the next quote sharper.
Build a fresh estimator in Taskade Genesis, see how other firms price work in the Community Gallery, or learn the numeric field setup in Learn. Feed it better inputs with Run a Structured Discovery Call, then standardize what you charge using Build a Rate Card With Tiered Packages.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does it estimate hours for work it has never seen?
It starts from the structure you describe and proposes ranges rather than false precision, then explains the reasoning per line so you can adjust. Once you have logged a few finished engagements, the agent compares new estimates against your own history, which is far more useful than any industry benchmark.
Should I show the client the hours?
That is your call, and the app supports both. Keep the effort grid internal and share only the phase narrative and price, or open the whole thing if you sell on transparency. Because they are views of the same record, you never maintain two versions of the truth.
How do I price risk without padding everything?
Give risk its own line. The app applies a loading per workstream based on the uncertainty you flag, so a data migration with unknown source quality carries a visible contingency while a well-understood workshop does not. A named contingency is much easier to defend than a quietly inflated day rate.
Can it compare fixed fee against a retainer?
Yes. Ask for the three pricing shapes and you get the same scope expressed as a fixed fee, a phased engagement with gates, and a monthly retainer with a scope cap, each with the margin implied. Seeing them side by side usually changes which one you lead with.
What if the client only has a budget number?
Work backwards. Tell the app the budget and it proposes what fits inside it, marking what falls outside as a phase two. That conversation is much better than discounting the full scope, because it protects your rate and gives the client a real decision to make.
Does it help me spot scope creep before it happens?
Partly, by making the boundary explicit. Every workstream carries what is included and what is not, so the request that arrives in week three can be checked against the line it belongs to. From there, Draft a Change Order When Scope Moves turns it into a priced addendum.
Can I estimate a piece of work with an associate involved?
Yes. Assign lines to different people, set different rates per role, and the price reflects the real mix. Pair it with Build an Associate and Subcontractor Bench so the person you are pricing in is actually available for those weeks.
How do I stop underestimating the invisible work?
Give it named lines. Coordination, review cycles, stakeholder management, data cleanup, and the second draft are real effort, and estimates that leave them out are wrong by a predictable margin rather than by chance. The app includes those categories by default and asks you to price them explicitly, which usually adds twenty to thirty percent to a first-pass number. Once you have logged actuals on a few engagements, the agent compares your estimates against your own history and tells you which category you routinely underprice.
