Hourly contract confusion

[#1]

Hey I have been hired by a client for a test article and this is what he mentioned,

“The contract I sent is just for the test article (we pay $3 which you log as 1 hrs of work)”

The hours limit is 5 hours per week for his project. I just want to make sure does he mean I'll get paid $3 per hour?

[#2]

He means that he wants to pay you 1 hour only, at $3 per hour

[#3]

Petra but the hour limit is 5hours which I saw in the tracker app under his contract. So that means whether I use 5 hours or less than that he'll only pay me for a single hour i.e $3?

[#4]

He is planning to pay you for a single hour. That is what he said. That is what you agreed to.

Or he is tricking you and planning to pay you zero.

If you log time manually, he will have the option to pay you zero.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

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Munza Q wrote:

Petra but the hour limit is 5hours which I saw in the tracker app under his contract. So that means whether I use 5 hours or less than that he'll only pay me for a single hour i.e $3?

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He has clearly spelled out that he will only want to pay 1 hour at $3.  If you log more than that, it will result in an unhappy client and poor feedback.

Personally, I would not accept that contract at all.

[#6]

Munza,

The minimum weekly limit clients can set up for an hourly project is five hours, if I remember correctly.

The client can't set his limit for you below 5 for the week, but it looks like he only expects you to bill him for one hour.

[#7]

Will:

Clients are presented with a drop down menu containing numbers of hours.

The smallest number is 5.

But there is also an "other" setting that allows the client to specify any number.

A client may this specify "1" as the maximum number of hours per week.

A client may also specify zero hours.

But the ability to do may not be readily obvious.

[#8]

Thanks for the clarification, Preston.

I've never seen that element of Upwork's project setup from a client's perspective. I recently had a client claim 5 was the only choice he had. I'll know better next time.

[#9]

Thanks to everyone for helping me out here.