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> I bill by the hour, not the minute. If I work 10 mins on something and do nothing for the other 50, you are billed an hour. Frankly, this is how most clients

> I bill by the hour, not the minute. If I work 10 mins on something and do nothing for the other 50, you are billed an hour. Frankly, this is how most clients have actually wanted it. I find it hard to believe anyone wants to over pay for your time by 6x what it's worth. I understand rounding up. But I don't understand working 10 minutes one day, billing for an hour, and then working 10 minutes the next day and billing for two hours total.

xeromal 4y ago
I do what OP does down to 30 min increments but I also bill a bit in how much cognitive power it required to do it. If I hopped on for 10 minutes to restart a server or something, I might bill 0 minutes or I might bill 30. If I had to drive out somewhere, live debug a device for 30 minutes, and drive back. I'm going to get an hour or two into my invoice somehow.
counttheforks 4y ago
Which would obviously be malicious and your output would suffer and the client would probably notice. Everything within reason.
asciimov 4y ago
You're paying for more that just the task, you are paying for the availability. I'd rather not block off a whole hour for a "quick" fix, but if you don't the company will come to you more often with quick fixes and those start to really eat up your day.
bityard 4y ago
Most people recognize that the value a contractor delivers is not linear with respect to the time it takes them to complete a job. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/
- halpmeh 4y ago
  That's very different than agreeing to a price ahead of time.
joenot443 4y ago
>But I don't understand working 10 minutes one day, billing for an hour, and then working 10 minutes the next day and billing for two hours total. If someone's breaking up their time like this, they wouldn't be in business very long I don't think. Any reasonable contractor would complete the job in 20 minutes the first day, bill for an hour, and have everyone leave happy. It's easy to imagine scenarios where contractors take advantage of their clients due to information asymmetry, but most contractors eventually realize their lifetime value is probably higher if they can keep their clients happy. I think the same principle holds true if you're a contracted Rust engineer or a contracted plumber; it seems to be that the honest, skilled, and justifiably expensive ones float to the top.
- halpmeh 4y ago
  Sure, I agree with everything you're saying. However, we don't know that the the original poster is a great contractor. All we know is they thing their clients can't think in non-hour units and prefer to be over billed, which is preposterous to me.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Some people are willing to pay a lot for the convenience of not having to plan.
vitaflo 4y ago
The only way I'd do that is if the client gave me 10 mins of work one day, followed by 10 mins of work the next and nothing else. Otherwise I'd just work 20 mins and bill an hour. More often however they are giving me 40 hours of work per week and I bill 40 hours, even if not every single hour is doing "focused work", and some of it may be downtime. Just like any employee who gets a salary. I've been a contractor full time for almost 15 years with dozens of different clients big, small and in between. You tend to get a feel for what clients want and/or need and what they don't. Mostly clients just want help getting work done and as long as you're meeting their deadlines and are pleasant to work with, they don't care that how much time you bill (as long as it's not more than 40 hrs per week). I'm not advocating for taking advantage of clients, but I am advocating for being realistic with running your own business. If you're only billing 10 min stretches you won't be in business for long. Clients understand this. It's just part of doing business.

xeromal 4y ago

I do what OP does down to 30 min increments but I also bill a bit in how much cognitive power it required to do it. If I hopped on for 10 minutes to restart a server or something, I might bill 0 minutes or I might bill 30. If I had to drive out somewhere, live debug a device for 30 minutes, and drive back. I'm going to get an hour or two into my invoice somehow.

counttheforks 4y ago

Which would obviously be malicious and your output would suffer and the client would probably notice. Everything within reason.

asciimov 4y ago

You're paying for more that just the task, you are paying for the availability. I'd rather not block off a whole hour for a "quick" fix, but if you don't the company will come to you more often with quick fixes and those start to really eat up your day.

bityard 4y ago

Most people recognize that the value a contractor delivers is not linear with respect to the time it takes them to complete a job. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/know-where-man/

halpmeh 4y ago
That's very different than agreeing to a price ahead of time.

joenot443 4y ago

>But I don't understand working 10 minutes one day, billing for an hour, and then working 10 minutes the next day and billing for two hours total. If someone's breaking up their time like this, they wouldn't be in business very long I don't think. Any reasonable contractor would complete the job in 20 minutes the first day, bill for an hour, and have everyone leave happy. It's easy to imagine scenarios where contractors take advantage of their clients due to information asymmetry, but most contractors eventually realize their lifetime value is probably higher if they can keep their clients happy. I think the same principle holds true if you're a contracted Rust engineer or a contracted plumber; it seems to be that the honest, skilled, and justifiably expensive ones float to the top.

halpmeh 4y ago
Sure, I agree with everything you're saying. However, we don't know that the the original poster is a great contractor. All we know is they thing their clients can't think in non-hour units and prefer to be over billed, which is preposterous to me.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Some people are willing to pay a lot for the convenience of not having to plan.

vitaflo 4y ago

The only way I'd do that is if the client gave me 10 mins of work one day, followed by 10 mins of work the next and nothing else. Otherwise I'd just work 20 mins and bill an hour. More often however they are giving me 40 hours of work per week and I bill 40 hours, even if not every single hour is doing "focused work", and some of it may be downtime. Just like any employee who gets a salary. I've been a contractor full time for almost 15 years with dozens of different clients big, small and in between. You tend to get a feel for what clients want and/or need and what they don't. Mostly clients just want help getting work done and as long as you're meeting their deadlines and are pleasant to work with, they don't care that how much time you bill (as long as it's not more than 40 hrs per week). I'm not advocating for taking advantage of clients, but I am advocating for being realistic with running your own business. If you're only billing 10 min stretches you won't be in business for long. Clients understand this. It's just part of doing business.