Buyer's Guide
How Technical Manual Work Is Scoped
The Short Answer
Effort Follows the Inputs, Not the Page Count
Buyers asking what a technical manual costs usually get either a meeting request or a per-page figure that falls apart on contact with the source material. The honest answer is that effort is the product of a handful of inputs, and a vendor cannot size the work until those inputs are known. This guide lists them, then the questions that let you supply them in your request for a quote.
It deliberately gives no figures. Any number published without your source data, your specification, and your acceptance terms would be a guess presented as a benchmark. The conversion cost guide makes the same argument for one kind of project; this one covers manual work generally.
The Inputs
Eight Things That Size the Work
- The state of the source data
- Engineering drawings, models, parts data, and test procedures that are current and in hand are a different job from a product that exists only in a legacy manual and the heads of two senior technicians. Writing from scratch, revising, and converting are three different kinds of work.
- The size and shape of the deliverable
- Pages are a poor unit. Count what the specification actually produces: data modules, work packages, procedures, parts entries, figures. Two manuals with the same page count can contain very different numbers of tasks.
- Illustration volume
- Every figure is a drawing someone creates, converts, or adapts, and callouts and hotspots add a second layer. A parts-heavy or procedure-heavy product is as much an illustration project as a writing one.
- The specification and its tailoring
- A cited standard sets the structure, and the contract's tailoring changes what it demands. A business-rules layer that is strict, or still being written, adds checks to every unit of content.
- Review and verification cycles
- How many reviewers, how many rounds, how fast comments return, and whether a verification walk-through on real hardware is owed. A reject loop is schedule and labor, and it is the input buyers most often leave unstated.
- Deliverable formats
- A print-ready document, structured source, an interactive viewer package, and a portal publication are different outputs with different quality gates. Each extra format is work even when the content is shared.
- Government furnished information
- Which inputs the customer supplies (data, hardware access, an existing library, a tool environment), by when, and in what condition. Late or incomplete inputs move the plan; scope should say who owns that risk.
- CDRL and DID obligations
- On a defense contract each data item arrives with its own Data Item Description, timing, distribution, and remarks. Those lines define the deliverables and their acceptance, so they are scope, not paperwork.
Unit of Work
Count What the Specification Produces
The unit differs by standard. S1000D content is built from data modules; Army manuals to MIL-STD-40051 deliver parts information as work packages. A scope that names the unit and a count (even a range) is far easier to check than one that names only pages. If the count is unknown, say so; that is exactly what a sample or an inventory stage is for.
For defense work the contract often does the identifying for you. DFARS 227.7103-2(c) tells contracting officers, wherever practicable, to set out the type and quantity of technical data, make each deliverable a separate line item, and give each a delivery schedule and acceptance criteria. Read the CDRL, the TMCR, and the statement of work against one another; our contract review checklist walks through it.
Before You Ask
Questions to Answer Before Requesting a Quote
- What is the product, and does the data to describe it already exist? Who can answer an engineering question, and how quickly?
- Is this new content, a revision, or a conversion? If a conversion, what format is the source in, and is it the master?
- Which specification and revision govern, and has the contract tailored it? Are business rules in place or still to be written?
- What are the units to be produced (modules, work packages, procedures, parts entries), and how many figures does each need?
- Which outputs are owed, in what formats, and delivered to whom and where?
- Who reviews, in how many rounds, and what does acceptance test? Is on-hardware verification part of the work?
- What will the customer furnish, and when? What happens to the schedule if it arrives late?
- What are the data rights and marking expectations, and who owns the source files at the end?
- What happens after delivery: revisions, change packages, a maintenance period?
You do not need every answer. A buyer who can answer six of the nine gets a sharper proposal than one who sends a page count, and the gaps tell a good vendor what to propose investigating first.
To a Statement of Work
How a Scope Becomes a Contract
The usual path has four steps. Discovery or a sample turns assumptions into observations: a slice of real source, run through the real process. A deliverables list names each output, its specification and revision, format, count (or range), and acceptance test, which mirrors how a CDRL is built. Assumptions and dependencies record what the customer furnishes, review turnaround, and the state of the source. A change process says what happens when an assumption proves wrong, because one will.
The commercial model (fixed, time and materials, or a standing arrangement) follows from how well the scope is known, not the other way around. A phased approach, with a bounded first stage and the rest sized from what it finds, is common where the source is uncertain. If the work involves a vendor and you are weighing options, see choosing a technical publications vendor and in-house versus outsourced. Our technical manual writing work starts from the same list.
FAQ
Questions We Hear
Why not quote a technical manual by the page?
Page count measures output, not work. A page of procedure with four figures, a page of parts data, and a page of descriptive text take very different effort, and the format of the source changes it again. A per-page figure given without seeing the source hides those differences until they surface as change requests.
Why do vendors ask for a sample before quoting?
A sample is the cheapest way to turn assumptions about source quality, illustration state, and review behavior into observed facts. For conversion work the same logic is laid out in our guide to what drives S1000D conversion cost: a representative slice, including the hardest material, shows what actually needs doing.
Fixed price, time and materials, or a retainer?
It depends on how well the scope is known. A fixed deliverable list with a stable specification suits a fixed arrangement; uncertain source data or an evolving specification favors a phased approach, with a fixed discovery or sample stage and the rest priced after. Ongoing revision work often suits a standing arrangement. Whatever the model, the deliverables, assumptions, and change process should be written down.
How does a defense CDRL change the scope?
It makes the deliverables explicit. DFARS 227.7103-2(c) tells contracting officers, wherever practicable, to make each deliverable technical data item a separate line with a schedule and acceptance criteria. Reading those lines against the statement of work, and against any TMCR, is how you find the real scope before you price it.
Get In Touch
Bring the Inputs, Get a Real Scope
Send what you have: the product, the cited specification, the CDRL or statement of work, and a sample of the source. We will tell you what we would size, what we would sample first, and what is still unknown.