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If you work on a day, you bill for a day. A major reason why you switch to day rates is, by construction, it will get you away from dealing with clients who th

by patio11 14y ago

If you work on a day, you bill for a day. A major reason why you switch to day rates is, by construction, it will get you away from dealing with clients who think that the value in the engagement comes out of counting hours instead of looking at what you're delivering to them. Bonus points: the exact same reason works well for charging weekly rates.

jacques_chester 14y ago
My main client is an IT organisation who are trying to entrench Scrum as their method for all projects they handle; regardless of whether the projects are done with "internal resources" or by hiring freelancers like me. To help them out, I've started quoting per-sprint. I take an underlying hourly rate, multiply it by the working hours, then give them the big scary amount. I mention the underlying hours I'll work and as of my last contract I've added an overage rate (to discourage fixed-cost shennanigans from creeping into a timeboxed method). So far, so good. One other nice thing: since I quote per-sprint, it makes it natural to invoice them per-sprint. That's fortnightly. Huzzah for better cash flow!
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Could I just clarify (I like the invoice per sprint idea) Do you still contract to work say 40 hours per week (at say 100/hr or 8,000 per sprint). Or do you say I will complete the stories in the sprint ? I take it from the overage rate that you are prepared to say well, this is taking longer than I thought - so I am charging more. But does that not mean you cannot complete the work in 20 hours then go look for some more clients?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Their billing process requires my invoices to show hours, so I still officially base it on that. 70 hours per sprint.
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Sorry for the late follow up but ... do you "get creative with the truth" on those 70 hours - or are you still just working for one client at a time, full time? if you do get creative - how do you feel about that?
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        It says 70 hours, so I work those hours. If and when I can switch to a different unit of billing, I will. Per-hour basis is not without its flaws (the main one being that the last 2 hours are decreasingly productive).

by patio11 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

My main client is an IT organisation who are trying to entrench Scrum as their method for all projects they handle; regardless of whether the projects are done with "internal resources" or by hiring freelancers like me. To help them out, I've started quoting per-sprint. I take an underlying hourly rate, multiply it by the working hours, then give them the big scary amount. I mention the underlying hours I'll work and as of my last contract I've added an overage rate (to discourage fixed-cost shennanigans from creeping into a timeboxed method). So far, so good. One other nice thing: since I quote per-sprint, it makes it natural to invoice them per-sprint. That's fortnightly. Huzzah for better cash flow!

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Could I just clarify (I like the invoice per sprint idea) Do you still contract to work say 40 hours per week (at say 100/hr or 8,000 per sprint). Or do you say I will complete the stories in the sprint ? I take it from the overage rate that you are prepared to say well, this is taking longer than I thought - so I am charging more. But does that not mean you cannot complete the work in 20 hours then go look for some more clients?
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Their billing process requires my invoices to show hours, so I still officially base it on that. 70 hours per sprint.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Sorry for the late follow up but ... do you "get creative with the truth" on those 70 hours - or are you still just working for one client at a time, full time? if you do get creative - how do you feel about that?
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      It says 70 hours, so I work those hours. If and when I can switch to a different unit of billing, I will. Per-hour basis is not without its flaws (the main one being that the last 2 hours are decreasingly productive).