One bad week taught me to stop quoting half-day rates

Last month I told a small business owner $150 for a half day of design work. He said yes, then sent 4 hours of edits that ate my whole afternoon. The next day two other people asked for the same half-day rate and I lost money on all three. Now I only quote per project, not per hour or half day. Has anyone else had a similar blowup from time-based pricing?

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henryr4519d ago

EXACTLY this. I had the same thing happen with a logo job last spring. Quoted someone a flat $200 for a "half day" and they came back with like 18 different versions and font changes and color tweaks for three straight days. By the end I was making like minimum wage on that project. Now I just tell people the TOTAL price up front and say what they get for it. If they want more after that, we talk about a new number. The funny thing is people actually respect it MORE when you quote the whole job. They stop treating you like a tap they can just leave running. I still do hourly for big projects with lots of unknowns, but for anything I can picture clearly, it's per project or I don't take it. Learned that lesson the hard way and I'm never going back.