Paid pilot projects: a low-risk way to start with a new client

A new client wants a big project, but neither side knows yet how well you will work together. A free sample puts all the risk on you. A full commitment puts it on the client. A small paid pilot shares the risk: the client pays for a short, defined piece of work, and you both learn before the larger job starts. This post shows how to scope a pilot, what to charge, and how to use what it teaches you.

What a paid pilot is

A paid pilot is a short project with a fixed price, a clear deliverable and a decision at the end. It is a real piece of work, not a sample or a demo.

It is different from the first phase of a project that has already been agreed. In a pilot, the full project is still an open question. The pilot exists to help both sides decide whether to go ahead, and on what terms.

Why not offer a free trial

A free trial has a hidden cost. Say you offer 30 hours of work to show what you can do, and your rate is $100 an hour. That is 30 x 100 = $3,000 of unpaid time.

There is a second cost that is easier to miss. Work that is free is easy to treat as low priority. The client may take longer to reply, give less careful feedback, and walk away without any commitment.

A paid pilot filters for clients who are serious. It also puts your time on the same footing as any other project, so you can plan for it properly.

When a pilot makes sense

A pilot works best in these situations:

• The full project is large or unclear. You can learn the unknowns in a small, safe way.
• You have not worked with this client before. You both see how communication and approvals go.
• The client is comparing suppliers. A pilot lets them judge you on real work.
• The work depends on access or data you have not seen. The pilot shows what the real state is.

A pilot is not needed for small, well-understood jobs. If a project is a few hours, quote it and do it.

How to scope the pilot

Keep the pilot small enough to finish in two to four weeks. Define it with the same care as any other project, using a clear scope statement.

Write down four things:

• The deliverable. One concrete output, such as a working prototype, an audit with recommendations, or one finished section.
• The hours and price. A fixed price based on an honest estimate. See how to estimate project hours without guessing for a method.
• The success criteria. Two or three plain statements that say what a good result looks like.
• The decision point. A date and a short meeting at the end where you and the client decide what happens next.

The success criteria matter most. Without them, "did the pilot go well?" becomes a matter of opinion.

What to charge

Price the pilot as you would any project, at your normal rate. Do not discount it heavily, or you teach the client that your time is cheap.

Say the pilot is estimated at 30 hours at $100 an hour. The price is 30 x 100 = $3,000.

Ask for payment up front, or at least a deposit, as set out in deposits and upfront payments: how much to ask and when. A short project is easy to pay for in one go.

Decide whether the pilot counts toward the full project

Before you start, agree what happens to the pilot fee if the client goes ahead. There are two common options.

• Credit it. The pilot price is deducted from the full project. If the full project is estimated at $12,000, the client pays 12,000 - 3,000 = $9,000 more.
• Keep it separate. The pilot is its own paid job, and the full project is priced on its own.

Crediting is a good incentive to continue, and it makes the pilot feel like a first step. Keeping it separate is simpler and protects your margin. Either is fine. The important thing is to put your choice in writing before the work starts.

Use the pilot to correct your estimate

A pilot gives you something a proposal cannot: real hours on this client's real work.

Say you estimated the pilot at 30 hours and it took 36. Divide actual by estimated: 36 / 30 = 1.2. If your estimate for the full project is 120 hours, apply the same ratio: 120 x 1.2 = 144 hours. At $100 an hour, the full project is now 144 x 100 = $14,400, not $12,000. That is a difference of $2,400 you would have lost without the pilot.

One pilot is a single data point, so treat the ratio as a warning sign, not a rule. For a method that uses several projects, read how accurate are your estimates.

The pilot also shows which assumptions held. Write them into the proposal for the full project, as described in proposal assumptions: the short list that protects your estimate.

Run the end meeting well

Schedule the decision meeting before the pilot begins, and keep it short. Go through the success criteria one by one and mark each as met or not met.

Then talk about what you learned: how long things really took, how feedback worked, and what would change for a larger project. If the result is positive, the next step is a proposal for the full work. A good place to start the larger job is a clear kickoff meeting.

If the pilot did not go well, that is also useful. You have lost very little, and so has the client.

This post is general information, not legal advice. Have a qualified person review the wording of any agreement.

Next step

Think of the next large or uncertain project you are about to quote. Define a pilot of two to four weeks, with one deliverable, three success criteria and a date for the decision meeting. Price it at your normal rate, decide whether it will be credited, and offer it alongside the full proposal.