I switched from hourly to flat rate for HVAC installs because customers liked knowing the price upfront. But I quoted a crawlspace heat pump swap at $2,800 and hit a broken duct that took 4 extra hours to fix, killed my profit margin. Anyone else had a flat rate job go sideways because of something you couldn't see from the start?
Back in 2019 I quoted a flat $500 for a restaurant logo and ended up redoing the fork icon 22 times over three weeks, which taught me to always cap revisions in the contract-has anyone else gotten trapped by a simple project that turned into a nightmare?
A client straight up said my $500 flat fee for a basic site felt "uncomfortably cheap" and it made me realize I was undervaluing my time. Switched to hourly after that, and my first $75/hour job took 12 hours but paid way better. Anyone else get a wake up call from a client's honest feedback on pricing?
Took a flat rate job for a restaurant site back in March. $5k flat. Thought I was being smart. Client kept adding features. "Oh can we do online ordering too?" "What about a loyalty program?" Three months later I'm working weekends just to break even. Total time spent was about 180 hours. That's $27 an hour. I could have made more driving for DoorDash. Never again. Anyone else get burned by scope creep on a flat rate project?