Begin with the problem you are solving, not your preferred technology. Who will use this, social media marketing services how many times a day, and how is the job done today? An estimator who knows what you are trying to achieve often proposes a simpler way to reach it; a team that receives only the requirements as given prices your assumptions along with the work.
Set out the scope as short scenarios: a walk through each important path. Just as important, write down what the first release deliberately excludes. An explicit list of exclusions prevents more disagreement during acceptance than almost anything else in the document. Indicate as well which decisions are settled and which are still open — honest teams price those differently, and hiding it helps nobody.
Write down the hard constraints. These include existing systems the software has to talk to, the data you have and llm development company where it lives, compliance requirements, expected load, target platforms and infrastructure that is already decided. If there is a hard date, say what depends on it: an experienced team will often rearrange the plan to protect it, provided they hear about it early.
Write down what done means feature by feature. Acceptance criteria do not require any formal notation: a short paragraph stating what must be true when the feature works is sufficient. This single habit compresses acceptance testing by a surprising margin and removes the usual argument at handover.
To close, state what you want in the response. Ask for a task-level breakdown, the assumptions behind each number, the risks the team sees and a range rather than a single figure. Treat a wide range as information, not evasion: it usually points to where your description is thin. Then rewrite that part and ask for a new estimate — the revised figure tends to be the one worth planning around.
