The $2,400 Pricing Mistake I Made on My First PWA Gig—and How I Fixed It
AI-generated illustration Real‑World Hook It was a rainy Thursday in Gulshan. My inbox pinged: "Need a PWA for my boutique, budget BDT 30,000, deadline 2 weeks" . The client, a 28‑year‑old fashion retailer named Riya, showed me her Shopify store loading at 7 seconds on 3G. She’d lost roughly BDT 12,000 in sales last month because customers abandoned carts. I replied, "I can make it offline‑first, under 2 seconds, for BDT 30,000." I signed the contract on Upwork, sent the first invoice, and started building. The Hidden Problem Most freelancers think pricing is just a math exercise: hours × rate + buffer. I did the same. I estimated 80 hours, set my hourly rate at BDT 400, added a 10% contingency, and landed on BDT 35,200. I rounded down to BDT 30,000 to look tempting. What I missed was the hidden cost of post‑launch support and the reality of Bangladeshi data plans. Riya’s customers use 3G most of the day, paying BDT 30 per GB. A PWA that still pulls a 5 MB bundle e...