[pinkmuffinere]

Sorry for the dumb question, but can you clarify this?

> Aka, you are a small business. Aka, never do hourly and fixed cost projects only.

My reading is “never charge hourly, and never charge fixed cost”. Am I misunderstanding? What is the third alternative? Retainer + hourly? Something else?

[zoogeny]

I'm pretty sure the parent comment meant "never charge hourly, instead do fixed cost projects only" but the grammar is ambiguous.

One strategy I've seen used is a fixed cost for the project (delivered to spec) combined with an hourly retainer for support and changes. Sometimes there is even an explicit carve out for changes during the development so you can avoid scope creep derailing the project (and the relationship with the client).

You don't want to get into nickel and diming the client: "why did it take X hours to set up a DNS? and what is a DNS? Do we even need a DNS?" etc.

[iancmceachern]

Exactly, I often do this as well. Fixed cost for the things that are easy to scope and predict, hourly for the stuff that's not.

[TIPSIO]

exactly!