Raptor wrote:
How about: bid the project at your usual rate, but bid a much lower
rate beyond the expected project duration. This gives the client a fair
fee for service, but protects both sides from a screw-up, while
"punishing" the contractor (me) for screwing up the bid. You still have
to manage the project's scope and snuff the usual creeping featuritis,
of course.
Doing my first PHP project as a contractor, just a small scope re-write
of a very complicated form, I bid $40/hr for the first 25 hours, then
$15/hr afterwards. As I gain experience with the language, I'll move my
prices up. My first client accepts the bidding and thinks it's
reasonable and effective.
That is similar to the way that I had done my contracting work. I'd put
in the bid for a project and explicitly covered everything that *would*
be included. I also stated at the end that additions/changes to the
project would result in additional fees charged hourly which was at
about 60% my usual rate.
For instance, if I bid out a website or online application for PHP, I'd
have given the normal $60/hr pricing with the contract. I'd also state
that if in the future changes/additions were requested by the client
that they could take advantage of a reduced rate of $36/hr, assuming
that a full-scale bid was not required.
This would allow me to bid normally for new customers or existing
customers that wanted me to bid out projects. However, those existing
customers that would say something like, "How long do you think it would
take you to do..." would get an answer like "8 to 12 hours," and only be
charged $36/hr.
This was very effective since it kept existing clients comming back
because the prices were always lower than if they had gone out for bids.
Since I didn't have to spend extra time bidding the project (which I
always hated to do), I wasn't worried about the reduced rate.
I was so successful for me as an indie, that one of my largest clients
decided to hire me full time. in fact, they kept the same rate schedule
ideas as well.
--
Justin Koivisto -
sp**@koivi.com
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