When Your Client is also Your Competitor
So, I need some opinions regarding what I should do here from a courtesy/relationships standpoint. Here's the background:
I do ongoing contract work for a design studio ("Studio A") that I absolutely adore. I help them out with overflow projects, and with web stuff that is beyond their technical abilities. They have a contact, another designer who used to work for them full-time, but left to start his own design studio ("Studio B"). When Studio B needed web help, Studio A referred me to them, and now I'm working with them on a project as well.
I just got a message from Studio A asking for an estimate on a project. They had originally asked Studio B for and estimate, but feel his estimate is too high, and are asking me what I would charge. I'm still looking into what it entails (it involves a pretty wonky proprietary CMS w/ a very non-intuitive structure), but I think that I would end up asking a lot loss for what this project entails.
Thing is, I don't want to undercut Studio A B, who is also an active client of mine.
What do you think the best course of action is here (assuming that I would like to take on the project)? I'm wondering if I should just decline this one…
I do ongoing contract work for a design studio ("Studio A") that I absolutely adore. I help them out with overflow projects, and with web stuff that is beyond their technical abilities. They have a contact, another designer who used to work for them full-time, but left to start his own design studio ("Studio B"). When Studio B needed web help, Studio A referred me to them, and now I'm working with them on a project as well.
I just got a message from Studio A asking for an estimate on a project. They had originally asked Studio B for and estimate, but feel his estimate is too high, and are asking me what I would charge. I'm still looking into what it entails (it involves a pretty wonky proprietary CMS w/ a very non-intuitive structure), but I think that I would end up asking a lot loss for what this project entails.
Thing is, I don't want to undercut Studio A B, who is also an active client of mine.
What do you think the best course of action is here (assuming that I would like to take on the project)? I'm wondering if I should just decline this one…