[thelist] When Do You Bill--Before or After Publication?

Martin martin at members.evolt.org
Sun Jul 23 08:08:21 CDT 2000


Christopher Orth - HQ wrote on 22/7/00 6:13 pm

>- Up to 5 hours up front for requirements gathering and negotiations.  If
>the client or I decide to turn down the job, those hours are free (which
>rarely happens).  Otherwise, they are billed for later.

Yup, that's a goodie.

In my freelance CGI days, where I had quite simple jobs (install &
configure fairly heavily featured form->email CGI would take an
afternoon, with a fair wind, a well set up Unix server and a helpful
sysadmin), I would tend to work it like this:

1) Don't provide an absolute quote (because of the above variables,
   the time spent will also vary wildly)
2) Provide a capped estimate. If you get done faster, you bill
   appropriately lower. If you take longer, the estimate is the most
   you bill for
3) Obviously make the estimate for *substantially* longer than
   your average speed for a given job.

So you tell the client "We estimate 500UKP, but if we get done
faster, it should be below that". And you end up billing them
300UKP. Clients like that, particularly if they've merely
subcontracted some of their work to you. It means that they
can increase their profits a bit *and* look good to the *real*
client.

I had several clients for the CGI service who were creative
agencies who had the relationship with the company wanting
the site. My job was to stay out of sight (my only credit was in
the X-headers of the outgoing email) and bill as above - I got
a steady stream of work out of it.

Cheers
Martin




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