I prefer to quote per project rather than per hour for my web scraping work because it:
- gives me incentive to increase my efficiency (by improving my infrastructure)
- gives the client security about the total cost
- avoids distrust about the number of hours actually worked
- makes me look more competitive compared to the hourly rates available in Asia and Eastern Europe
- is difficult to track time fairly when working on two or more projects simultaneously
- is easy to estimate complexity based on past experience, atleast compared to building websites
- involves less administration
Per project also encourages the client to demand as much additional work as they can possibly get out of you for that one fixed price.
ReplyDeleteFully agree with you. I suspect a lot of your clients will value your upfront approach and honesty.
ReplyDeleteJosh: the work I do is usually well defined so I haven't found that a problem. Definitely a risk for web development work though.
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