Ask HN: Do you charge a retainer?

[slindstr]

I've been freelancing for a while now and in general it's gone like this:

1. A potential customer requests a quote for a project

2. I send them a quote and (usually) they agree to have work done

3. I complete the work on time and everyone is happy

4. A couple of weeks down the road they want minor changes made to the site (copy, images, etc.)

The problem is #4 - while what they need done is extremely minor (maybe 5-10 minutes of work per shot) the REAL problem is that they consistently want these extremely minor things done every week or so. I didn't charge them anything initially because they were my first customer and they've been referring new work my way, but the little bits of time are starting to add up.

Would you charge a retainer/maintenance fee for a situation like this? How would you present it to your customer? What do you recommend for terms for a retainer/maintenance fee?

Thanks!

[bdfh42]

Always charge for work after a reasonable period (perhaps 90 days) following contract end. Minimum charge - 1 hour.

Offer a maintenance contract if you want with a choice of an annual "up front" fee or monthly billing (I always charged monthly in advance).

Doing free work is no way to retain a customer's respect - I bet they do not give away much free "product" themselves.

[slindstr]

Thanks for the insight! I agree completely - the only reason I ever did free work for them was because they were literally my first customer ever, and I wanted to keep them happy.

[codeslush]

I get that you wanted to keep them happy, and sometimes that's the price to pay for getting initial traction and referrals.

Most reasonable people understand boundaries though. If you charge a minimum of one hour, then they are forced to batch up and prioritize their requests. This is a good thing. Right now, you are training them the wrong way!!! Keeping a customer happy is not the same as being a slave to them.

I would also suggest that there is no such thing as a 10 minute task. You have to account for your mind-shift between projects. This is why it helps to batch things up - and you can explain it like that. You can do four or five changes at one time much faster than you can do five changes over five different days.

Monthly retainers are great if you can get it. Maybe even something like 5 hours a month. Give them 6 every now again - that will make them happy.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention - you may want to discount your rate slightly for the retainer plan. This makes it mutually beneficial.

[thijsc]

In addition to charging a retainer it would be wise to not take on fixed scope/price projects.

We always tell our clients that we charge by the hour and we give them as accurate an estimate as possible. Usually there's a provision that we warn them in advance if we're going over an estimate by more than 20%.

On occasion I've found it helps to take on part of the project for a fixed price as a first trial run of your services. But then always be clear that it's a trial run and that you'll automatically fall back to the hourly rate for any work after that.

We bill by the month, regardless of if projects are finished. This helps a lot too since the client can't use the date of the invoice as leverage in a negotiation about scope for example.

This strategy works out great for us, I can enthusiastically recommend it.

[bdclimber14]

2 Things:

I always charge 25% up front (in case they cancel halfway through, or just take forever to get started).

Once the project is done, maintenance is always hourly with a 1 hour minimum. Even if it only takes 5-10 minutes, the bill will be for an hour. As long as you are upfront about this, it will give them incentive to batch the changes into groups, and also make it so you're not taking 5 minutes out of every day to do some minor change.

There are the hidden costs that clients don't consider: Stress and time to plan to do the change, firing up the environment while stopping what you're working on, changing, testing, uploading, emailing the client to let them know it's done, doing an invoice, following up with payment, cashing the check, etc. 5 minutes of work generally takes an hour of your time overall.

[misfyt]

i charge my clients for updates once the project has gone live (once you go live, proposal was complete). i charge per hour and bill work in 15 minute increments. anything that takes longer than X (for most clients that's 2-4 hours), i give them a quote. anything less than X, i just do and then send an invoice every 2 to 4 weeks.