I Built a Micro-SaaS to Help Clients Understand My Prices

I used to think I was bad at planning.
But over time I realized the problem wasn’t my hours, it was my structure. My proposals looked clean and professional, but they didn’t show what was behind the numbers.

When it finally clicked One day I got fed up and decided to break a project down properly.
No more “Phase 1: Design” or “Phase 2: Development.”
Instead, I listed everything step by step.

• One-time costs like design, setup, and integrations
• Recurring costs like hosting, domains, or maintenance after launch
• Milestones that grouped all the one-time work into clear stages

Each milestone had its own deliverables, payment setup, and short notes on what’s included. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked. For the first time, clients could actually see how many moving parts there were and how long each one would take.
They finally understood why something cost what it did. And that changed everything.

From frustration to a prototype After doing this manually a few times, I noticed I was rebuilding the same Notion template over and over — just changing numbers, checking formulas.
So I built a small internal tool to make it faster. It wasn’t meant to be public, but a few friends saw it and asked to try it. That’s how Leadsleek was born — a small SaaS for freelancers and small teams who want to stop guessing and start quoting with clarity.

The Proposals dashboard When you log in, you land on your proposals dashboard.
It’s your command center where you can track everything — drafts, sent proposals, signed projects.

Proposals page From here, you can open open proposals, duplicate them, or start a new draft.

Leads page All client inquiries come here. Each brief includes enough info to decide whether it’s a good fit — project scope, timeline, budget.

Filling a brief Every user gets a unique brief link to share with clients or fill out together on a call. Clients enter a name, short overview, preferred start and deadline, and an optional budget. Then contact info, review and send it.

After submitting, the inquiry appears in your Leads Inbox, ready for review. If it looks interesting, you click Create Proposal to build a proposal.

Proposal editor This is where the fun begins.
Each proposal starts with basic project info and a clear timeline divided into milestones.
Below that, you can add one-time costs, recurring costs, and extra notes. Here’s how a sample filled out draft proposal would look like:

Proposal Editor 1/2

Recurring costs are great for showing what happens after launch — things like hosting, analytics tools, or content updates.

File:Proposal editor 2-2.jpg650px Proposal Editor 2/2

You can reorder milestones, tweak durations, adjust costs, or remove what’s not needed.

Each milestone includes pre-payment details and deliverables.

A sample Framer project To give you a more realistic idea, here’s a project I built for a returning SaaS client — a full marketing website in Framer. Milestones

• Discovery & Content Planning — 15% pre-payment
Description: the foundation stage where I gather materials, review goals, and define priorities.
Deliverables: kickoff call, project goals, sitemap, content structure, and timeline.
• Design & Prototyping in Figma — 25% pre-payment
Description: designing the main pages, defining the visual system, and preparing components for Framer.
Deliverables: homepage layout, feature sections, pricing page, responsive variants, and one feedback round.
• Framer Build & Animations — 20% pre-payment
Description: turning designs into a working, high-quality website ready for testing and client review.
Deliverables: responsive build in Framer, smooth transitions, custom animations, and CMS integration.
• Launch, QA, and Training — 20% pre-payment
Description: final adjustments, SEO setup, domain connection, and client handoff.
Deliverables: final quality check, accessibility review, SEO setup, bug fixes, and a 1-hour training call.

Final Payment — 20%

One-time costs:

• Project kickoff & preparation (calls, setup, materials) — $750
• Landing page design (hero, features, pricing) — $1,800
• Component system and global styles — $900
• Framer setup and project migration — $1,200
• Custom animations and interactions — $1,050
• CMS setup (blog, resources) — $600
• SEO setup (metadata, OpenGraph, sitemap) — $300
• QA, accessibility check, and training session — $600

That brought the total to $7,200, but since this was a loyal client, I used the Apply Discount option and rounded it to $7,000.

Recurring costs:

• Hosting on Framer — $180/year (i.e. $15/month basic plan)
• Domain renewal — $20/year
• Monthly maintenance and content updates — $120/month

How I estimate each cost People often ask how I decide that something costs $500 or $1,000.
The short answer: I don’t guess anymore. Leadsleek has an Hourly Rate feature — in my case, it’s set to $75/hour.
I just estimate roughly how many hours each task will take, and the tool calculates the total automatically. To make this more accurate, there’s a Daily Availability slider (visible only to me). I can set how many hours per day I’ll actually spend on this project — say, 4 hours a day for a side gig, or 8 hours full-time. The Include Weekends toggle adjusts the deadline if I plan to work through weekends, and all these inputs combine to give me a realistic total cost and estimated finish date. It’s important to know that these options only appear when the Time Unit is set to Hours, which lets me control both cost and scheduling in one place.

I am also not setting up everything each time — just saving as a Template and reuse my own proposal template. Later on, I am planning to make a huge library of sample templates to reuse, right now there are just a few to pick.

This part adds transparency without extra math.
I can show the client how the total number came together — and keep the deeper calculations just for myself.

Sharing the proposal Once it’s ready, click Preview to see how the client will see it. At the bottom, the client can accept, suggest changes, or decline (in Preview Mode it’s disabled).

When you hit Share, Leadsleek pulls their email from the brief, sends a short custom message with a link and PIN, and you’re done.
If you make edits later, versioning keeps all changes tracked so both sides are always on the same page.

What I learned Project estimating isn’t about getting the math perfect. It’s about showing your work. When clients understand what’s behind the price, they stop questioning it — and you stop doubting yourself. Leadsleek just helps make that process faster, clearer, and easier to repeat. If you’re tired of guessing your way through estimates, start breaking your projects into smaller, transparent part. And if you want a tool that does that for you, check out leadsleek.com with 30-day free trial (no credit card required). Side note: It’s a Beta, if you noticed some bugs please report inside the application or at [email protected] Have fun winning deals!

Read the full article here: https://medium.com/@alanpodemski/i-built-a-micro-saas-to-help-clients-understand-my-prices-9200e5025556