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If the clients you're dealing with are scared by person/day rates, stop working with them I agree, there are no other industries where a professional will take

by kls 15y ago

If the clients you're dealing with are scared by person/day rates, stop working with them I agree, there are no other industries where a professional will take on the business risk of another party with the exception of legal, and when they do they expect 30% of the case winnings. But for the vast majority of legal they charge for every hour worked. There is no reason for freelancers to work on a project compensation basis, they are shouldering unnecessary risk, that is usually due to the client not understanding development. Per project pricing immediately sets the freelancer up to have to defend against every change that inevitably comes in. Unless it is routine work, I rarely take on custom development work as anything other than an hourly arrangement.

tptacek 15y ago
What you're talking about isn't "hourly" versus "project", it's "time and materials" versus "project". You can bill in person/week increments on a time/materials basis, and in fact that's what you should do. You can write a consulting proposal that reads identically to a project-based contract, break out your pricing in person/weeks, and then write a time/materials SOW with a "additional time will be billed in person/day increments at the rate specified in this contract" clause. Be careful; project risk and your billing increment are orthogonal concerns.
- kls 15y ago
  Right sorry if I my writing seemed to imply differently, I was definitely talking about time and materials vs project. I was just adding cometary to the discussion and not trying to refute a position, I apologize if my wording did not convey that. what I was trying to say was if a person is scared of by a day rate, because they want a total rate then I tend to shy away from those projects. I will provide an estimate of what I think it will take, but there is an understanding that due to the nature of software development that estimate will change the first time they change their mind. Which always happens in software development.

by kls 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

What you're talking about isn't "hourly" versus "project", it's "time and materials" versus "project". You can bill in person/week increments on a time/materials basis, and in fact that's what you should do. You can write a consulting proposal that reads identically to a project-based contract, break out your pricing in person/weeks, and then write a time/materials SOW with a "additional time will be billed in person/day increments at the rate specified in this contract" clause. Be careful; project risk and your billing increment are orthogonal concerns.

kls 15y ago
Right sorry if I my writing seemed to imply differently, I was definitely talking about time and materials vs project. I was just adding cometary to the discussion and not trying to refute a position, I apologize if my wording did not convey that. what I was trying to say was if a person is scared of by a day rate, because they want a total rate then I tend to shy away from those projects. I will provide an estimate of what I think it will take, but there is an understanding that due to the nature of software development that estimate will change the first time they change their mind. Which always happens in software development.