Estimate at your rate
Hours you should expect to spend
Fixed price that beats T&M
Contingency that requires
Your fixed price
Your price against break-even
Effective rate if it overruns

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How the numbers are worked out

On time and materials you are paid for every hour, so an overrun is the client's cost. On a fixed fee you are paid the price whatever the hours, so an overrun is yours. A fixed fee beats hourly billing once the price is higher than what the hours you should expect to spend would have billed.

Expected hours come from two inputs. Confidence is the chance the project lands on the estimate. The overrun figure is how far over it goes when it misses. A 400 hour estimate at 70% confidence with a 50% overrun gives 400 × (1 + 0.30 × 0.50) = 460 expected hours. At $150 an hour the break-even fixed price is $69,000, which is a 15% contingency on the $60,000 estimate.

Quote $72,000 with a 20% contingency and you are $3,000 ahead on average. If the overrun does arrive, you spend 600 hours for $72,000, which is $120 an hour. The average is fine and that one project still hurts. Both numbers matter.

Being honest about confidence

Owners overstate confidence. A useful check: of your last ten fixed price projects, how many finished within 10% of the estimate? That fraction is your confidence, whatever this one feels like. If you have never tracked it, use 50%.

When the calculator says the contingency you would need is more than the client will accept, the answer is to reduce the unknowns with a paid discovery phase, or to bill the work hourly. The full comparison, with a decision sheet you can fill in per project, is in fixed price vs time and materials. Overruns that come from the client adding work are a different problem with a different fix: see scope creep.