3 ms·
tell them "I don't work in hourly increments; if I spent an hour on your project in a day, I can't effectively work for any other client that day, so my minimum
by gnosis 15y ago
tell them "I don't work in hourly increments; if I spent an hour on your project in a day, I can't effectively work for any other client that day, so my minimum billable increment is a person-day"
You don't need to go through that whole song and dance. Simply make your hourly rate higher than your daily rate.
Alert clients will prefer to hire you by the day every time. As for the less alert clients, if you are in a kind mood you could tip them off to the savings they'd enjoy if they hired you by the day instead.
Modify your hourly rate upwards depending on just how averse you are to working more than an hour a day even for the least alert and/or deep-pocketed clients.
- tptacek 15y agoThis is clever, but for me, if I work an hour for a client in a day, the day is shot for any other client. My hourly would have to be 8x my daily, my 4-hourly 2x my daily, &c. Incidentally, I'll happily work an hour for people I like (and it never bothers me when people ask). I just don't bill for it.
- gnosis 15y ago"if I work an hour for a client in a day, the day is shot for any other client. My hourly would have to be 8x my daily, my 4-hourly 2x my daily, &c" If they are paying at least your daily rate, why would you mind that your day is shot for your other clients? They are, effectively, hiring you for the entire day and paying what you've determined you deserve for it. If they are inattentive/crazy enough to actually pay you more than your daily rate for an hour (or any number of hours up to the maximum number of hours you'd work in a day anyway), then that's just pure gravy. Same for the case when it takes you less than a day to do the work you're getting paid at least your daily rate for. In your original post, you'd said "I can't effectively work for any other client that day, so my minimum billable increment is a person-day" so in recommending the raising of your hourly rate to more than your daily rate, I was going on the assumption that your daily rate would have been sufficient for you to accept the job in the first place. Of course, if you can't afford to work a day for your new client because of other commitments, you'll either have to refuse the job or raise your rate to the point that it is worthwhile for you after all. Perhaps that's what you were referring to when you cited the 8x daily rate.
- tptacek 15y agoYou're probably right. I think your hourly/daily billing idea is clever.