[Paul_D_Santana]

What do you do for services where you are needed once, maybe twice a month, for 1-3 hours at a time?

[chollida1]

Retainer:)

I contract out to a few hedge funds for writing trading systems. I have my main product and roll updates out every few months.

if a fund wants a couple of hours a month they pay a flat fee per month to me. If the time needed is less than 5 hours then no problem. If its more then I bill on a daily basis.

Rate depends on who gets final ownership of the code, ie can I resell it to another fund or is it theirs.

[d0m]

Sell the value of your service, not the amount of time. "Making sure the server is secure, up-to-date and always online" > "1 hour a month".

[prawn]

I get in that situation, but it can be very irregular. e.g., 20 minutes once off then nothing. Or 10 hours, then nothing for four months, then two hours.

Further, it's hard to break from this with existing clients to a retainer model when they know that most months they won't be asking for help.

[bdunn]

A monthly retainer, though try not to sell it based on the amount of time they reserve of yours each month.