How Much Does a Technical Manual Cost?

I get frequent phone calls from prospective clients who are interested in getting a manual written for their project.   In a lot of cases, the individual making the call is new to the entire technical writing process.  Many times they will ask "What will a manual cost?"

One of my mentors responded to this question with another question.  He would say "Well, imagine that I'm holding a box.  You don't know what's in the box, but I ask you how much you would pay for the box.  What would you say?"

His point was that unless you know what's in the box, any answer you give would be pure speculation.  And without knowing more details about a technical writing project, it is impossible to provide even a "ballpark" number for pricing.  There are a lot of variables that will affect the price:

Who is the audience?
What kind of source data is available?
What kind of illustrations do you want?
What's the schedule?
Is the design complete?
Is there a specification or style guide to comply with?
Do you have a standard format that your company uses?

And there are many more, but you get my point.  Allard is happy to provide free quotes for our services, but it takes some time and work to calculate the impact of all these variables and establish a price.

So if you call in and ask "How much will it cost?" be prepared to tell me what you'll pay for the box.