Multiple Milestones, One Full Payment After Completion

[32a686bf]

So basically my company has bad experience with freelancers in the past, and i would like to make sure that the freelancer does not go missing when we need him. So instead of paying by multiple milestones, we would like to release a full payment once the freelancer completes all of the milestones.

[prestonhunter]

Sure. You can do that if you can get a freelancer to agree to it.

My advice:

Don't use fixed-price contracts at all.

Use hourly contracts only.

And properly construct your project so that it is modular, and not dependent on a single freelancer.

[93df0620]

right.

[williamtcooper]

Hi Ted, just use 1 Milestone.

What type of work have you hired for and what rate were you paying? This is probably the bad experience in a nutshell. Large 5-Star Review more expensive Freelancers are pros. Thanks!

[r2streu]

This really depends on the job and the kind of freelancer you're hiring. As a voice actor, I'll rarely take on a large contract (ie, one that will ultimately take weeks to complete) without some milestones in place. There don't have to be a lot of them, but there are jobs I won't even take OFF Upwork without set incremental payment terms. 

I also don't do hourly. My reason for this is simply that my rates reflect both the job itself and your right to use my voice (buyout). This is difficult to cover in an hourly contract.

That said, there are MANY jobs and many contractors in different industries in which hourly makes perfect sense. There's simply not a one-size-fits-all solution. You'll find a number of creative freelancers will only charge by the job and also require milestones for various parts of the work being completed. 

[sajal36]

Hi,

All fixed price contract goes by milestone based billing. The benefit of milestone based billing is that you have checkpoints at milestone to ensure the project is moving in right direction and have right commitment from the freelancer. If you have freezed on projet scope and requirement are well defined than you get good risk reward benefit from fixed price project. 

 However if requirement and scope not freezed than it is better to go hourly with proper risk mitigation planning in place. For e.g. Dependence on single resource will be a big risk to the project. 

If the project duration is more than 2 -3 weeks than finding good freelnacer based on project based milestone will be difficult. Better you split the requirement in smaller chunk and involve multiple resources for different smaller milestones.

[prowriterusa]

Think of it this way. Most freelancers are ethical. If there are some that are not they are not vetted here on the site, that's an UpWork issue. (UpWork get on this on the client side.)Also, think of it like this. Are you doing work without a partial down payment from your clients? It is a good ideas for freelancers to get a 1st milestone- it protects us. Why have you chosen certain freelancers and what was your criteria?