Engaging with software dev agencies and running RFPs is even more lengthy and requires commitment and resources.

Playing with GPTs, I found some satisfactory results it can get, given the proprietary data I provided it with.

Introducing EstimateGPT: A software development planning assistant and custom GPT tool to quickly get a draft estimate and plan the project.

It uses the redacted data of estimates we had done by hand for the last 5 years, and it was given a context and instructions that apply to software outsourcing projects.

Here are some examples: 1) https://chat.openai.com/share/d2a8aa16-26aa-4971-a20d-d62d450670ea 2) https://chat.openai.com/share/b4b36eba-c225-4287-b631-4f73003831ce

It certainly does not make ideal estimates and may miss something or hallucinate, but the results seem to be close enough to what you may generally find across the industry.

Would be great if you could try it out and share some of your thoughts. It works great with PRD/SRS, and you might need to get one handy to speed up the process. Feel free to copy a sample from the example.

Here is the EstimateGPT link (requires ChatGPT Plus subscription): https://chat.openai.com/g/g-Cghb6X2U7-estimategpt