[nowarninglabel]

>In the rest of the economy, we agree on a price beforehand

This occurs in auto repair as well (though maybe less than it used to). Those repairs, in my opinion, have been quite stressful as well. Are there other industries where we bill afterward?

[TallGuyShort]

Maybe find a different shop? I've had mechanics that acted the way described, but I called around and found one that would give me an upfront price for a diagnostic and then called back with a detailed plan for parts and labor to do the required work. I've lived in a number of cities in the US and always managed to find one that does this over the phone.

[pmiller2]

My shop does the same thing. They charge a diagnostic fee that's equivalent of 1 hour's labor and give me an estimate to fix the issue. The diagnostic fee counts toward the repair. Sometimes they find other things when doing the work, but I can relate: who hasn't gotten into fixing a bug and found out it's more complicated than they thought at first?

[FigBug]

Software Development. I won't do fixed price contracts unless it's really simple. Always time & materials.

Home renovation. You'll get a quote, but the final price can be way higher. Any service when you are dealing with unknowns, the price is going to have to be flexible.

[monocasa]

You'll at least quote an hourly rate, a doctor won't do that.

[rubicon33]

For super obvious reasons. A developers cost is almost entirely their time. That is the "unknown" for a developer.

For a doctor, the unknown includes many possible things like drugs administered, blood administered, emergency care, hospital costs, etc. It's not as simple as an hourly rate estimate, unfortunately.

[monocasa]

I mean, every time I've dealt with a contractor it's time and materials. And the markups that hospitals charge on materials would be considered fraudulent by a court if someone tried to pull that as a freelancer.

[pishpash]

It's worse than auto repair since that requires you to give a written estimate and material changes require approval. Healthcare providers will straight up refuse to give any estimate. The galls.

[tomjen3]

I am not even sure doing repairs I haven't agreed to is legal in Denmark, and you can bet I wouldn't pay for them.

Hence my mechanic has my phone number and will call me if there is an issue, and we can agree to fix it (or not, which includes taking it to another shop).