Technical Documentation Cost Estimation

You probably expect to see some exact figures here. However, as projects can be very different, it is not easy to provide general numbers. As a rule of thumb, the approximate amount of time required for writing software documentation or procedures and processes is:

For printed/PDF documentation output:

• about 1 hour per page to revise an existing document
• about 2 hours per page to write a new document

For documentation in online format:

• about 2.5h per concept topic, one concept topic per node, tab, window, screen page, etc.
• about 4h per task topic, one task topic per menu item, icon, action, button
• about 1.5h per reference topic
• generally between 4h and 2 days for in-line tutorials, depending on their complexity

For hardware or complex drawings, the time required can be significantly higher.

For a professionally made screencast, the time required for development and production is generally between 1 and 3 hours per minute playing time, sometimes even more, depending on the product and on your quality goals.

My rates are based on the specific professional requirements of a project and charged either hourly or daily, depending on what is more advantageous for my customers. Please feel free to ask for an individual quote.

Editing and proofreading

Editing and proofreading are not the same:

• Proofreading is making sure that the existing text is correctly spelled, punctuation is ok and its content is understandable and it flows well.
• Editing involves the careful review of the content of the document and rewriting where necessary, if, for example, the sentence structure is too complex, or it is not easily understandable. Depending on the state of the documentation, it might even mean the rewriting of whole sections or chapters to make them user friendly and easily understandable. Proofreading does not necessarily require knowledge of the product but editing certainly does.

A rule of thumb is 2 to 3 pages per hour for substantive editing, 5 pages for minor edits and about 10 pages per hour for proofreading.

My quotes are always based on realistic estimates, not on best-case scenarios. Of course, I only charge for the hours that were actually spent on the project. In general, I prefer to base my proposals on estimations for online formats, they are more easily quantifyable, as explained before. It is much easier to create a list of all software elements that require concepts, tasks and reference topics and count them, than estimate how many pages are required for each. For you, my customer, and your desired output formats this does not make any difference, as I use single-sourcing tools to create documentation. As the name indicates, these allow me to produce all the requested output formats for online and "printed" documentation from the same source.

Flexible solutions in case of a limited budget

If you only have a limited budget for your project, we can figure out a smart solution that makes best use of this budget. We can, for example, run an ABC analysis to decide on priorities, and we can then create the documentation efficiently. Whenever more budget becomes available we can review the list of priorities and add to the documentation.