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Had to pick between hourly rate and project fee for a 3 month web design gig
A local cafe owner reached out last month about redoing their site. I usually charge $65 an hour but she wanted a flat number up front. I went with $2,800 for the whole thing figuring it would take 40 hours tops. Ended up spending 55 hours on it because she kept changing her mind about the menu layout. Made about $50 an hour instead of my normal rate. Has anyone else gotten burned on a project fee when the scope creep kicked in?
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jackson.max8d ago
A buddy of mine took a flat fee to build a little website for a real estate agent. Thought it would be a quick two week job. The agent ended up wanting new photos every week and a whole section for each new listing. My friend spent almost two months on it and made less than minimum wage when you counted all the extra hours. He told me he'll never do a flat rate again unless there's a hard cap on changes.
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Oh man, that sounds rough. I had a similar thing happen with a small project for a friend's band website. I agreed to a flat fee of $500 thinking it would be just a simple one-page thing with their tour dates. They kept asking for new show posters every week and even wanted me to add a whole merch store with different images. By the time I was done, I'd put in over 30 hours and felt like I was working for peanuts. Now I always put a limit on how many changes are included in the price, no matter how small the job seems.
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ross.kim8d ago
I actually switched to a hybrid model after getting burned a couple times. I'll quote a project fee for the initial scope based on my hourly rate plus a 10-15% buffer, but I include a clause that says any changes beyond that scope get billed at my hourly rate. So for that cafe job, I would've charged $2,800 for the original 40 hours of work she agreed to, then when she started messing with the menu layout I'd switch to $65 an hour for those extra 15 hours. It's a little awkward to bring up at first but most clients actually respect it because they know exactly what they're getting into from the start.
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