Frequently asked questions

A tool for building project estimates. You break the work into categories and tasks, put effort against roles, and the sheet computes everything — totals per offer, additional costs, discounts and VAT. When the number is right, you send it as a read-only share link or a branded PDF.

Freelancers, studios and companies that price project work as roles × effort — agencies, consultancies, software shops, in-house delivery teams. If a quote at your place is more than one flat number, RateHive will feel familiar in minutes.

No — the estimate is the product, rates are configuration. Your workspace keeps a rate card (role groups with default rates); every estimate resolves against it live, so totals always use current rates. A project can pin its own rate for a role when a specific deal needs it — a visible, deliberate override, not a stale copy.

On purpose. RateHive focuses on one thing — estimating project work — and pairs with whatever already runs your money loop: an invoicing suite, accounting software, a PSA platform. Depth over breadth: variants, role rates, comments and live share links exist precisely because the product isn't spread across ten modules.

Yes. The public playground runs the real estimate editor in your browser — nothing is saved to any server. If you sign up later, you can import your draft as a project.

We keep an honest, screenshot-backed comparison against spreadsheets, proposal software, agency platforms and invoicing suites — including where we tell you to buy the other thing.

Categories contain tasks; tasks carry per-role effort cells; category rows and totals are computed as you type. Below the grid sits an additional-costs panel for one-off and recurring items — a negative value renders as a discount — and VAT applies on top if configured. Custom columns (like QA or PM) can be typed per task or computed as a percentage of row effort.

Up to four parallel offers of the same estimate — say, Core scope vs. Full rebrand. They share one structure; each owns its numbers and its scope, with excluded rows kept visible rather than deleted. Compare mode lines all offers up side by side with the differences highlighted. Variants are a Team-plan capability.

Yes — versions. Save an immutable, numbered snapshot at any point and restore it later; restoring copies the snapshot back into the working estimate. Day-to-day edits autosave continuously, and simultaneous edits are reconciled instead of silently overwritten. Note that totals always price against your current rate card, including restored versions.

Templates. Snapshot a project's estimate into the workspace library, then start any new project from it — applying a template copies the document, so templates and live estimates never share state. The Freelancer plan includes one template; Team is unlimited.

Best: a share link — a read-only web view of the live estimate that needs no login on their side, can carry an expiry date, and can be revoked at any time. Or export it: PDF via print, CSV for spreadsheets, or a plain-text version for email — each as a single offer or as a comparison of all variants.

On paid plans, yes: logo, company details, an accent color and a legal footer note, applied to the printed PDF and the shared web view. It's configured once, in workspace settings.

No and no. Share links are strictly read-only; editing requires workspace access with an editor role. Comments are an internal annotation layer for your team — shared views, prints and exports never include them.

Freelancer is $0 forever: unlimited projects, the full estimate editor, every export format and share links, and one estimate template. It's a single-member plan — just you. No card and no trial clock.

$14.99/month for the whole workspace — not per seat. It adds up to 10 members, variants, field comments, branded exports and unlimited templates. There's a 14-day trial with no card required.

Your projects and estimates stay. Variants and branding stay stored — the editor just collapses to the primary offer and branding stops being applied, so everything returns if you upgrade again. What does get trimmed to the free plan's limits: members beyond just you are removed and their pending invitations withdrawn, and templates beyond the first are deleted (the newest is kept).

Three roles — Owner, Editor, Viewer — at the workspace level, with optional per-project overrides. Editors change estimates and manage share links; viewers get a read-only rendering including compare mode; owners additionally manage settings, billing and the danger zone.

On servers in Europe. The privacy policy covers the details, including GDPR and Swiss FADP.

Any ISO currency, set per workspace and overridable per project. Rates and effort can be per hour or per day, and an optional VAT percentage applies on top of the subtotal — each following the same pattern: the project setting wins, otherwise the workspace default applies.