ZAMBO.

Direct answer

Do not price the fog. Sell the stage that clears it.

A client who cannot describe the project is not being difficult. They are telling you the truth early: the scope does not exist yet. The mistake is answering that honesty with one firm number, which quietly makes you the insurer of everything neither side has thought of. The working answer is smaller and fairer: a paid discovery stage that finds the scope, delivered and accepted on a record, with the build priced in stages from what discovery actually found.

See the instrument first: the live demo runs one real call and hands you its verifiable receipt, no signup.

Updated October 24, 2026. The two delivery records quoted below are real and public, with their client decision states read back from the live service on publication day.

Step 1. Name the unknown plainly, and split learn from build

Say the quiet part in the first conversation: neither of us can price this yet, because what it is has not been decided, and anyone who names a firm price today is guessing with your budget or with my time. Then split the work into its two honest parts. Learning: finding out what is needed, what exists, what it connects to, and what it should cost. Building: making the thing, once it is defined. Most bad quotes come from charging for the second part before anyone has done the first. Naming the split does not slow the project down. It is what lets the project start this week instead of after weeks of quote tennis about a shape nobody can see.

Step 2. Sell discovery as a fixed first stage

Discovery is a product, with a fixed price, an end date, and named outputs: the findings, the recommended project shape, the scope written as in and out, and the staged build price that follows from it. Keep it tight, days or a couple of weeks, and include the working sessions and material reviews the findings need. The client keeps the discovery output either way, which is exactly why it is paid: it has value if they build with you, with someone else, or not at all. A client who values the answer will pay for the stage that produces it. A client who wants the learning free and the build cheap has told you how the rest of the project would have gone.

Accepted: the decision is on the record

Pending: checked, and still waiting on a decision

Discovery delivered this way ends in one of those two states, and only one of them can carry a build price. Accepted means the scope is agreed and the staged price stands on it. Pending means the client still owes a decision, and pricing waits with it.

Step 3. Deliver discovery on the record, and get it accepted

Findings delivered in a call evaporate. Findings delivered as a record stay priced. Run the discovery stage as a handover the client opens: the steps that ran, the saved results, and a place to accept or flag each part. The record format is AER-1, published as an IETF Internet-Draft (draft-zambo-aer1-26), and each step carries a verifiable receipt: a receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved. The two public records below show the pattern: an accepted record, decided_by client, is a base both sides can build a price on, while a pending record shows a decision still owed. The client acceptance of the scope is the moment the fog becomes a project, and every later number points back at it.

Step 4. Price the build in stages from the accepted scope

With a scope the client has accepted, pricing gets ordinary again, and ordinary is good. Cut the build into stages that each end in checkable work, put an amount and an acceptance on every stage, weight the deposit first and the smallest slice last, and start each stage when the previous one is accepted and paid. State what the staged price assumes, straight from the discovery record, so a later surprise can be measured against it. The client gets a firm price for a defined thing, which is what they wanted at the start. They just needed the scope to exist before the price could honestly follow it.

Step 5. Price what arrives later at stage boundaries

New wants will arrive during the build; they always do, and on a project that started undefined they arrive in numbers. The rule that keeps everyone calm: changes are priced at stage boundaries, as their own small stages, from the accepted scope as the measuring line. A request that matches the scope is build work. A request outside it is a priced addition with its own acceptance, never a silent expansion of a stage already underway. Because discovery was accepted on the record, this conversation is arithmetic, not argument: here is what was scoped, here is the addition, here is its stage price. Clients accept additions far more easily when the original scope is a thing they personally accepted.

Step 6. Keep the walk away clean for both sides

Price the unknown in stages and even the no becomes inexpensive. If the client declines discovery, offer the honest alternatives once: a range with its assumptions in writing and a firm cap, or a smaller fixed first stage of real work with a decision date. If they decline those too, decline the project, warmly and in writing, and keep the door open for when the scope firms up. You have lost a conversation, not a month of unpaid guessing followed by a disputed invoice. And if discovery itself shows the project should be smaller, later, or never, deliver that finding with the same care. Being the person who priced the truth is how the next, better defined project finds you.

What a record does not settle

A verifiable receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not prove a discovery finding is right, does not set a price for work nobody has scoped, and cannot make a client accept a scope they dispute. The accepted discovery record, the written scope, and the staged prices are what you would show anyone asked to judge what a number was based on. This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.

Frequently asked questions

How do I price a project when the client does not know what they want yet?

Do not price the unknown as one fixed number. Price the learning first. Sell a paid discovery stage with its own fixed price and end date: a short, defined piece of work that finds out what the project actually is, and delivers its findings as a record the client checks and accepts. Discovery ends with a written scope, what is in, what is out, and the build priced in stages from that scope, each stage ending in checkable work the client accepts before the next starts. The client is not paying for guessing. They are paying for the stage that removes the guessing, with a result they keep either way. If the client will not pay for discovery, they are asking you to carry the cost of their unknown, and a range with a firm cap or a smaller first stage is the furthest you should bend. The unknown gets priced in stages, or it gets priced onto you.

What should a paid discovery stage include, and how long should it run?

Short and concrete: days or a couple of weeks, never an open ended study. Name the outputs in advance, in writing: the findings, the recommended shape of the project, the firm scope for the build with what is out stated plainly, the staged price built on that scope, and any risks or open questions that remain. Hold a working session or two inside it, look at the real materials, and test the one risky assumption if there is one. Deliver all of it as one record the client accepts, because the acceptance is what turns findings into the agreed base for the build price. Discovery that ends in a chat summary has not finished. Discovery that ends in an accepted scope has.

What if the client just wants a ballpark number today?

Give a range that is honestly labelled, and tie it to discovery in the same breath. A range built on similar finished jobs, stated with what it assumes and what would move it, is fair today talk. What is not fair, to either side, is letting a ballpark harden into the price while the scope is still fog. Say it plainly: this range holds if the project is what it currently sounds like, discovery confirms which end of the range it is, and the firm price is set in stages from the accepted scope. Put the range in writing with its assumptions attached. Months later, that one message is the difference between a range that was always conditional and a quote the client remembers as promised.

What if discovery shows the project is much bigger, or should not be built?

Then discovery did its job, and its price was the cheapest money in the whole story. Deliver the findings on the record exactly as found: the real scope, the staged price it honestly carries, and the smaller version that fits the original budget if one exists. Sometimes the right finding is do not build this, or build this smaller thing first, and a client who paid for honest findings usually trusts the person who saved them from a wrong build. If they walk away at that point, they walk away holding a useful, accepted record they paid for, and you walk away paid for the work you did. That clean ending is the whole reason discovery is a paid stage and not a free favour at the front of a hopeful quote.

How does delivering discovery on a record protect the price?

The accepted discovery record becomes the base every later number points at: the scope the client checked and accepted, the staged price built on it, and a clean line between what was known when the price was set and what arrived later. When the work runs through Zambo, every step carries a verifiable receipt under AER-1, published as IETF Internet-Draft draft-zambo-aer1-26, and new users get 20 free calls per day, then they upgrade when the job needs more. For $0.99, run the next job that way: get the Day Pass. A Day Pass covers 24 hours. Ongoing use is the Zambo Pass at $29 for 30 days (one payment) or $290 for 365 days, and $19 for 30 days for $ZAMBO holders, which adds private handover links, your branding, and the approval record as PDF and JSON files.

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