Hourlie offers for gigs that fit more as fixed priced jobs

[Jose Daniel M]

Hello guys. Today I brought a doubt regarding this particular scenario. Honestly I don't have many problems about it (mostly because getting tracked hours is good for business); however, it sometimes feels a bit awkward, as you would rather need to calculate how long you gonna have it on to reach the agreed quota.

This is example:

- You finished your job before the time tracker reached the agreed price: This is pretty obvious. The first solution is just to keep the tracker running until it reaches the agreed price and then stop it, but the thing is that this little app take pics of your desktop randomly, which is good, but you may be exposing yourself in a negative way (if by some reason my client happens to be not so good and start a dispute, how do I explain the arbiter that I was playing League of Legends during "paid hours"?). A better solution is to simply ask the client to send the rest of the money as a bonus payment, but that is also kind of tricky depending on the client. The third option is to simply ask the client to resend a fixed offer and everything will be just okay. That is actually the best solution to be honest.

Overall, I want to know your opinion about it. You may come up with a  far better solution tha me.

[Preston H]

You either have a fixed-price contract, or an hourly contract.

Don't try to make something into both.

[Preston H]

Here's an example of the proper way to work:

A client asked me to do Project X.

I told her I estimate it would take me 2 hours to do Project X.

I said I could do it for a fixed-price quote of $XX.00.

She hired me using an hourly contract.

It took me 1 hour to finish the work.

This means I will earn less money I planned.

That's okay.

The end.

[Rene K]

If you feel that the job should be fixed price, you just tell the client during the pre-hiring interview and they can easily change it.

You never let the tracker running empty or while doing something else. Don't even think about it.

[Jennifer M]

I just tell them the number of hours I"m going to charge them. But I use manual time, sooooo

[Jose Daniel M]

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@Rene K wrote:

If you feel that the job should be fixed price, you just tell the client during the pre-hiring interview and they can easily change it.

You never let the tracker running empty or while doing something else. Don't even think about it.

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 I am aware of the consequences. Do you think there is a reason of why a client would prefer an hourlie contract?

Preston: I lost money but now I'm K.

[Rene K]

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@Jose Daniel M wrote:

Do you think there is a reason of why a client would prefer an hourlie contract?

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New clients often set hourly because it's the default option. Some experienced clients prefer hourlies for their own reasons, probably because they're used to work this way.

I never had any problems when asking them to switch to fixed.

[Irene B]

It depends on what you do. I write and edit. Certain gigs I recommend an hourly arrangement, others (mostly) fixed price. 

[Preston H]

re: "Do you think there is a reason of why a client would prefer an hourlie contract?"

As I client, I generally prefer hourly contracts whenever I want to obtain a higher-quality result.

Client: I need a program done that will do X.

Fixed-Rate Freelancer: Okay, the program does X. Here it is.

Hourly Freelancer: I spent the time necessary to make sure that the program is bug-free, well-written, commented, and can easily be maintained as you use this in the future.

[Rene K]

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@Preston H wrote:

As I client, I generally prefer hourly contracts whenever I want to obtain a higher-quality result.

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It is true in some fields but not in others. In translation there is no such correlation and I'm sure there are many fields where there is no need to go hourly for better quality. On the other side, in some industry such as IT, it's better to work on an hourly basis.