F
21

Picked a flat fee over hourly for a trademark search... ended up losing $200

Had to choose between charging a client $150 an hour or a flat $1,000 for digging into trademark conflicts last month. I went flat fee because I thought I could knock it out fast, but the database kept pulling up close matches that needed extra research. Has anyone else gotten burned by underestimating how much time a flat price actually takes?
3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In
3 Comments
sethm58
sethm586d ago
Did you end up billing any extra on top of the flat fee or was it locked in once you quoted it? I'm always curious how people handle those gray area issues that pop up mid-search since some databases are way more cluttered than others. Like those 5 extra similar marks you found, did you just eat the time or try to negotiate a partial adjustment?
7
keith164
keith1646d ago
Firms eat time on flat fees all the time, that's just the gamble you took.
3
hernandez.gavin
Did you factor in how long the database itself takes to load?
2