It doesn't depend on the case; it's a question of how you frame the project.

If you need to design the product before you can estimate it, you propose a design project. You should propose to produce a design deliverable; you can offer your client a price break to skip that deliverable and plow ahead into implementation.

Or, you can quote the project "blind" but structure it so that the client bears the risk; for instance, by quoting a fixed number of billable weeks with a "if you tell us by week N, you can get more contiguous weeks at this rate" clause.

Or, if the client is really worth having and the project is good, you can do enough design work to do a realistic proposal gratis, which is what we invariably end up doing, because we don't do projects that aren't worth doing that for.

But in no circumstances should your proposal itself be perceived as having a price tag. One consultant did that with us once and I had to talk my parters down off the wall against ending communications with them right there.

> If you need to design the product before you can estimate it, you propose a design project. You should propose to produce a design deliverable; you can offer your client a price break to skip that deliverable and plow ahead into implementation.

I guess this is ultimately what we did (had they turned us down on the main project, they would have walked away with the design spec). That's the standard policy now.

Yeah; I think I sounded pretty pedantic back there, so let me just say I don't think you're suggesting anything wrong. I'm just saying, I've seen fledgling consultants accidentally let themselves be perceived as billing for the proposal work, and I'm pretty sure that's a big mistake, worth calling out.