The Project I Quoted Right and Staffed Wrong
The estimate was accurate. The hours were tracked. The project still lost money because I didn't watch who was doing the work.
I quoted the project based on my own rate and my own working pace. The estimate was solid. I had done similar work before and I had the time logs to prove it.
Then I brought in a contractor to handle part of it.
That decision cost me around $1,800 I hadn't budgeted for.
The Logic That Made Sense at the Time
I was overcommitted that month. The project was real and the deadline was fixed. I needed help.
I hired someone I had worked with before. Good work. Trustworthy. Slightly lower rate than mine, which felt like it gave me margin to work with.
What I didn't account for was efficiency.
The Hours Were Not Equivalent
I had quoted the project at roughly twenty hours based on how long it took me. The contractor spent closer to thirty-two hours on the same scope of work.
That's not a criticism of their work. It was good. But they were less familiar with the client's style, less practiced in that specific type of deliverable, and more methodical in ways that added up.
I had done this type of project enough times that I had built up speed I didn't even know I had. My quote assumed that speed. My contractor didn't have it.
The twelve extra hours, at their rate, came directly out of the project margin.
What the Time Log Showed
Because we were both logging into the same project in Time-Trak, I could see the breakdown clearly. Their sessions, my sessions, total hours against the original estimate.
About two weeks in I could see the project was tracking over. I didn't do anything about it then because I thought it would even out. It didn't.
If I had checked that report at the end of week one, I would have had a conversation with the contractor earlier. Maybe found a faster approach together. Maybe absorbed a piece of the work back into my own hours where I could do it quicker.
Instead I saw the full picture at invoice time. Too late to do anything except absorb the loss.
The Gap in How I Build Estimates
My estimates had always been first-person estimates. How long will this take me. That's the question I was answering when I built a quote.
Once you bring in other people, that question stops being the right one. The question becomes how long will this take the person actually doing it.
I had never tracked my contractor's time closely enough to know their pace on different types of work. I had no data. I was guessing, and I was guessing based on my own pace, which didn't apply.
What I Built After
I started keeping separate hour-per-task notes for every contractor I work with regularly. Not a formal system. Just a running log of how long their sessions actually take on different work types versus my estimate.
After two or three projects with the same person, I have real calibration data. I know if they run slower or faster than my baseline on specific tasks. I can build quotes that reflect what will actually happen rather than what would happen if I did every minute of it myself.
This isn't about judging the contractor. It's about pricing accurately.
The Broader Lesson
Tracked hours are only useful if you're reading them during the project, not just at the end.
I had good data. I just wasn't looking at it in time to act on it. Now I check project totals against estimates at the halfway point of every engagement. If the number is off, I want to know while I can still do something about it.
The estimate was right. The staffing assumption was wrong. Catching that difference mid-project is the whole point of tracking.
Track your time, bill every minute.
Time-Trak is a native Mac and Windows time tracker with a floating timer, automatic screenshots, and one-click invoicing.
Free during beta.
Download Time-Trak →macOS + Windows · Floating widget · Auto screenshots