You want to price your work product based on Customer Value if you can. As a businessman, you almost always want to sell value, not hours worked. The businesses

You want to price your work product based on Customer Value if you can. As a businessman, you almost always want to sell value, not hours worked. The businesses you are selling to use the same metric. The exception to this if you need to offset risk. If you have no idea how long the project will take, you may want need use some arrangement that caps your downside risk. Example: If the job involves Research and might not even be solvable, no time estimate is going to be accurate. In that case, you would want to work by the hour or something so if it takes longer than you think you aren't working for free. A couple of things businesses pay for are: A) Relief from pain (make the problem go away) B) Reduction of risk (fixed price) "A" is obvious but I think many new freelancers/consultants ignore "B". If you want to quote a fixed price, you absolutely need to price in a risk premium. If you "normal" rate is $100hr, your "fixed priced" needs to be some multiple of that, say $2-400hr.