| Down side to hourly rates: 1. Clients hate them. Very rarely do you they understand the difference between paying for your time and paying for the finish product they are asking for (and it's correlation to your effort/time). 2. I much prefer day rates over hourly rates. If something can be done in a few hours, then it should be free. 3. If you are a good developer and can develop quicker than most than doing a fixed price has a huge upside to it. 4. The number one reason for hours/days going longer than expected isn't based on developer/designer competency, but rather project management and lack of clear requirements (or changing requirements). Pinning commercials against the root cause of most delays can cause really messy situations. If you're working with startups specifically, I typically do the following: 1. Give a rough estimation of what their project will cost. 2. Tell them that with this estimation they get X number of designer/developer days to build their project. They get to see an update of the project every 1-2 weeks and can decide how they want to use their budget accordingly. TL;DR - I tell my clients that they are paying for my team's time and not for a web project. Otherwise, I do a fixed price and massively buffer it. |
3: This is true, but it puts an ugly arrangement, you want to overcharge as much as possible, and work as little as possible. The client wants to "drag out" the contract to try to maximize the value of their investment. You are enemies from day 1.
4: This is 100% true, but unrealistic, the client often doesn't know what they want, they want you to help "defog" their vision and express it in technical terms.