I guess you just don't like this idea. But samples are typical in loads of professions, you can get sample tiles, and so on. Not for free. Why shouldn't you

I guess you just don't like this idea. But samples are typical in loads of professions, you can get sample tiles, and so on. Not for free. Why shouldn't you pay for a sample at a rate that is not the rate you will be buying the full product. Maybe my specific examples are for a different market (always hard to say where people are writing from: is it the bay area, or a smaller city) but depending on what the developer and company are looking for and their stage of financing, etc, this can enable fits that otherwise just can't happen. Both of them take a risk (the shop that is non-technical and can't tell who is the right one, the developer who doesn't really want to work for 4 or 8 hours for 160 or 320 dollars) but if they do, it can pay off. When there is trust I just don't see why this is so bad. Loads of long relationships form this way (paid at normal market rates or higher - higher, explicitly due to the fact that the client is not in a position to shop around, can't do technical interviews, etc. Wouldn't you want a client like this? Where if you prove your ability above their other candidates, they can't find a replacement for you and are going to pay you approaching the "monopoly price" - what the business case makes your services worth to them?)