14
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. ...
10
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 ...
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 ...
7
I have used 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 ...
7
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
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
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
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 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
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 ...
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
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
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
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 ...
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 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 is the work for both sides.
With that information, it will ...
4
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
Assuming it's only a small slump, I would look for more clients. You need food on your table, and that's your first priority.
It's good you want to work with your client, as opposed to only for yourself - but part of being a freelancer is that you go where the money is. If money isn't coming in the same, but they get the same amount of work out of you, then ...
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
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
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 ...
3
First, If you are a native English speaker, check your grammar. It's pretty bad. If you are not a native English speaker, but deal with native English clients regularly, you may want to have a friend or someone proofread some emails/communications.
As you have it, but proofread a bit:
Back in 2015, you wanted to sell the full version for desktop and only ...
3
Always and always, in case of miscalculations, talk to the client first. Explain to him why you missed estimations and how you worked much more than you initially thought.
Ask the client if he is willing to compensate extra hours you put in the project. Client has right to decline since it is not his fault you missed your calculations. But any good client ...
3
Communication
If you are friendly with the client, speak to them, expressing the concern. I would not simply provide an ultimatum. That will often be seen as "demanding" and "unfriendly".
Instead speak to the client as if you would ask anyone for an extension on anything - i.e. imagine a professor with an assignment you needed an extension on, or a bill ...
3
This is something I've done myself...
First, make sure you've got "letter stuffing" as part of the costs. Some places are happy to print, but won't stuff envelopes. I managed around 4/minute at peak stuffing rate.
Second, allow tranches of surveys to be sent. Relieving the pressure on your print/send service will make things cheaper and more accurate, as ...
3
In my experience, the only times I have made money on a fixed price contract were when I had built a solution for that problem already and I only needed to tweak it for a new client. I had to price the solution about 7 times what it cost me to tweak in order to make money. I cannot do custom development on fixed price.
Clients like fixed price. They want to ...
2
A relevant quote from Contract Killer 3 (a boilerplate contract):
Technical Support
We’re not a website hosting company so we don’t offer support for website hosting, email or other services relating to hosting. You may already have professional hosting and you might even manage that hosting in-house; if you do, great. If you don’t, we can set up an ...
2
If you charge per hour, then charge all time you spent, even checking if he replied.
Unfortunately, there is no fee for slow clients. All you can do it either ditch him and stop working with him or charge him more the next job.
But I suggest you seriously talk to him and explain to him why his slow reply made your work conditions bad. He may be OK client, ...
2
I think you should not charge any extra, because there was no mention of max response time in the initial terms of agreement or SLA (Service Level Agreement).
You can take it as a learning and specify some time frame in which the client is expected to answer in the agreement itself. But if the extra time/cost is not significant, I recommend not charging the ...
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