31
Most people have trouble estimating projects, especially when they are new. When estimating, we tend to think of the project on a very high level and fail to take into account the details involved in figuring a good target estimate.
The most logical solution is to prevent this problem by focusing on improving your estimation techniques:
Break down the work ...
30
Your best course of action with these kind of clients is to try and get the main scope agreed up front. You can then give the client a fixed price quote, based on how long you think it will take you. I would also be inclined to add on a contingency of maybe 20% to account for the inevitable small changes that they will want to make.
You will also need to ...
13
Unethical people can be unethical completely regardless of any payment structure.
Pricing high does not instantly make someone unethical. Perhaps that price for the three week project is accurate even though experience allows the work to be done faster. There are simply too many variables here to answer in any sort of definitive manner
Here's a scenario......
11
You're pricing yourself into the ground. @ChrisForrence has great points and I'll add a few more...
You will NEVER and I repeat NEVER profit from charging $350 for a site. Let's break this down from the first meeting...
First meeting. Needs assessment - 1 hour
Contract writing - 2 hours
Concept development (for a basic site) - 2 hours
Second meeting. ...
11
I typically leave it up to the client to decide. I'll offer them an hourly rate, but also offer to work with them at an hourly rate to work on the project definition and then quote them a project rate based on the fully flushed out project description.
The real key with any kind of fixed rate work is to be sure you know what is needed, to be sure that ...
11
I prefer not to ask for more money on fixed bids with fixed scope. What I will do is put the additional hours on the invoice and mark them as discounted 100%. I have occasionally had customers offer to pay for those though it is the exception rather than the rule. I would rather charge a higher rate that allows me to eat some extra cost and lose some ...
10
First, I usually do hourly up to x hours or just hourly, but I do some fixed bids too.
In general fixed bids are preferable for a customer if the scope is very clear, and they are preferable for the consultant if the price is higher than the hourly would be. I would say that most of my fixed bid work brings me more per hour than my hourly rate. What I am ...
8
Your friend has good reasoning. Here's a few reasons why charging more will be better for you:
Slow periods: One reason to charge more is to be able to live off of past earnings. If you have four projects this month and none next month, that second month is going to seem pretty darn lean, especially for living in New York City!
Charging $400 ...
8
When a client asks you for fixed-price, in essence the client is asking you to absorb the risk. Unless your specs are done in mind boggling detail, the client is going to assume that anything caused by poor communication is a cost that you are going to absorb.
So here's a fair exchange: if the client has the capability to alter the requirements, then you ...
6
As Entrepreneur I cannot see the value to pay per hour.
It is exactly the opposite metric - I am interested in the work done with minimum hours spent. And freelancer paid by hours is incentivised naturally to increase the number of hours. I just feel it is wrong base for collaboration.
Shouldn't we be looking instead to align our goals? Care about quality, ...
6
Go hourly whenever you can. It will solve all these issues.
Then clients do want fixed-price projects and in such cases do a few things:
Add MAX number of changes you will undertake for free in terms of colors, fonts, effects and other such things. this does not apply to bug fixing.
Calculate some percentage as extra time which will cover or unplanned ...
6
Short version: the easiest way to bill ethically, is to match what you're selling.
Longer version: My product is very clearly my time. Clients hire me to build custom web applications, and many times the specifications around that are very fluid (and they should be), so the client is really purchasing my time to work with them refining and building their ...
6
I have use both hourly billing and flat fee billing. I used to always favour hourly billing on the basis that I felt it was more ethical, but soon changed my mind about this.
The main reason for my change of mind is that time is not always a valid reflector of the value of the work done, e.g.:
A job might take longer but contain more repetitive unskilled ...
6
Why do you allow being treated like this? "Calling me every 2h and messaging every 15min + threatening" - WFT bro????
I would never, NEVER, N E V E R allow being treated like this.
Now, aside of this, the client obviously wanted a lot of free work and he found fertile ground to impose his requests for free. At this point, you only have 2 options: break ...
5
I tend to work out all of my prices on a estimation of the time of the project as it is currently defined, +20% contingency. I will then look at how this fits with their budget, if I forsee they will be repeat clients and require maintenance I will often take this price lower.
I would recommend you do it in this way. Pricing "by page" generally devalues you ...
5
The main thing is you need to justify why you want more money. Has it taken longer than expected? are there additional materials required etc? If the answer is yes, then put that to the client and see if they're willing to pay the extra. If not then inform them the project may not be finished. This of course will only work if you mentioned at the beginning ...
5
Here are the factors I use when determining a fixed price for clients:
My estimated time to complete the work
My confidence level in that estimate (is it similar to work I've done before? Then I might have more confidence. If it isn't similar, or has other risk factors, then I might charge more on a fixed bid to mitigate that risk.)
Any third party tools or ...
5
It depends on your client and how well you know them.
For new clients and big projects I will always do fixed price for two reasons:
Gives the client peace of mind about the size of the bill coming
For full projects I always take a 50% deposit for my own peace of mind - I've never had a client complain about this either. You can't do this with an hour ...
5
You'll want a sort of retainer agreement. There are other answers that explain about retainers, and when to use them.
Essentially, they want you available for a long while, which gives you some security (which can be good, it could be bad). Do not fall into the trap of it becoming just a job, with them just paying you as a contractor but expecting you to ...
5
Only answer you can get to this question is it depends what you can offer and how much this is worth to someone:
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.
Many years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible ...
5
I don't understand why you would even hesitate to sign an NDA unless you didn't intend to keep the IP secret. If someone needs 5 minutes of work done and they want to ensure their IP is protected, an NDA does that. The amount of work you are being asked to complete has absolutely nothing to do with the signing of an NDA.
All the NDA states is that you will ...
5
Accept the money and keep this client.
The client may recognize that at the beginning, he asked for 10 requirements, but over time he realized that he was really asking for 100. Accordingly, he's trying to pay you what you're worth.
YOU, on the other hand, seem to be very inexperienced. Not so much in your technical expertise but in your limited ...
4
My own policy is to do fixed price offers based on sufficiently detailed specifications, and announce an hourly rate for extras. When I feel the need, I also explicitly state what is not included in the basis offer.
Then during execution of the contract, when new requests pop up, I can raise the flag "this is extra".
Having a relatively high hourly rate ...
4
If you work on a retainer like a lawyer does, then depending on the specifics, your client may/will expect you to ask for more money.
Most attorneys will accept a client with a standard retainer, often $10k to $100k, and explain to the client that this amount will be held in escrow (many states require that amount to earn interest at some rate too) and paid ...
4
I hate and decline all project instructions over call as well. I simply tell them something like "In a call, we can discuss plans and ideas at the very high level. However, if you need to explain any feature or your request or you need to clarify something, I prefer in writing so I don't have to retype everything we talked about."
Be determined with this ...
3
There's a lot of really good answers here, but I just wanted to pipe up and mention what I've come across in the past (either by trial and error, as well as what I would consider best business practises).
If you have quoted your client $2,500 to do a custom WordPress theme, they agree and you set out to do the 45 hours you budgeted for yourself to do it, ...
3
If you don't know well your client, your first goal is to build relationship of trust. In my view, the best way is to fix price a small job first, that is easy to estimate and deliver on time.
This will give you great opportunity to understand how the client works and how enjoyable and productive the work for both sides.
With that information, it will be ...
3
Here is my Entrepreneur/Employer's perspective:
If you don't know well your client, your first goal is to build relationship of trust. In my view, the best way is to fix price a small job first, that is easy to estimate and deliver on time.
This will give you great opportunity to understand how the client works and how enjoyable and productive the work for ...
3
There are a few solutions to this dilemma.
1 - If your platform allows it, you can answer to the client without specifying an amount in your answer. This way, you avoid being discarded on price only and it gives you a chance to prove your skills and communication abilities to the client.
2 - I found that if the client is looking for really low hourly rates,...
3
You state that:
He can't assign tasks in Asana because this is a fixed price project.
and
We use slack for communication.
The very simple answer is to invoice him for the time spent calls, as these calls appear to be outside the agreed scope of the supply.
You need to reinforce that you have agreed a fixed-price contract for a fixed supply - and any ...
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