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Chose an hourly rate over a flat fee for a 6 month project in Portland
Everyone told me flat fees were safer, but I picked hourly and ended up making $2,800 more because the client kept changing their mind about design tweaks, has anyone else found hourly works better for long gigs?
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casey3421mo ago
Wait, @charlie198 is right about tracking changes, but no one's mentioning that some clients push back on initialing a spreadsheet like it's a legal document. Setting up a simple shared Google Doc or even a Slack thread for requests usually works better because it feels less formal and they actually use it. You just reply with the date and time every time they add something, and that's saved me way more arguments than any signature system ever did.
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charlie1981mo ago
Learn to track every change request from day one, total game changer.
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finley_smith4d ago
Yeah that spreadsheet with initials thing works until you get a client who thinks it's too corporate. I've had way more luck just using a running email thread. Every time they ask for something I reply with "Got it, adding [change] to the list" with the time and date. It's not fancy but it's saved me more times than I can count. Plus it's all right there in their inbox so they can't claim they never saw it. I just keep that thread going until the project wraps, then I have a neat little paper trail of every single tweak they asked for. Clients never argue with their own words.
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blair_torres701mo ago
Jump on that change tracking early, it saves so much headache later. @charlie198 nailed it with tracking every request from day one. I started using a shared spreadsheet where the client initials each tweak before I do the work, and it cuts down on "I never asked for that" arguments big time. Plus you can look back and show them exactly how many revisions they burned through by month three, which makes billing way smoother.
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