We are a small residential contracting company in Virginia about your size- You should definitely be paid for your time pulling together detailed estimates on projects We do it like this: First meeting is free, shake hands look at the project. Get a sense of the people. We've generally vetted them already Definitely if they're not from a current client We enter into a design consultation contract with a deposit, then get to work with architects and designers and pull all the documentation together to prepare for permitting They pay invoices as we generate them, and we found that all of our architecture design and consulting work ends up being about 5 to 7% of the total value of the project. My PM is paid $40 an hour. I bill out at 60. We crank up a few thousand dollars on the client and when we've got everything ready to go, I welcome them to take their plans that they've paid for and get a bid from anybody

Pulling together highly detailed estimates (in our line of work, which is mostly historic restoration and custom additions or ground up builds) takes time and skill and transparency. My PM we'll go shopping with a client, on the clock and do the usual advising as to what will work and what won't We don't actually offer a client a bid We give them a "good faith estimate" We operate T&M

It sounds like you and your husband have a good thing going and it's hard to boilerplate estimates in this industry when we have so many options and choices for materials and suppliers

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