On Thu, 25 Jul 2002, Gerard Samuel wrote:
> Do you charge by the page, script or by the hour (that would be nice).
It's a tough thing to do, but consider charging by the project. You'll
find a most equitable payment/compensation when you establish up front how
valuable the project is to the client, and how valuable your time and
services are. I find this is the best way to put a client at ease [(s)he
knows what (s)he's paying ... no surprises, unless they're
client-inspired], and you can concentrate on the project instead of how to
make the site fit into X pages or how to justify or fit the project into Y
hours.
Get a couple small projects under your belt, just for the learning
experience, and you'll get a good feel for a process that suits your
needs.
Things I did to get become acquainted with a good process:
- did small projects for free, just to prove (to the client and myself)
that my code and I can survive
- did small projects for an undervalued price to get my foot in the door
of potential future paying clients, to build a decent portfolio, and to
assemble a good list references
- did projects just because I love to code and solve problems, not for the
cash. (YMMV. There are a myriad of reasons I employ this philosophy,
that I won't preach about here.)
Typically what I try to establish up front:
- the total project specs
- terms on deliverable(s) (how many stages a project is divided into)
- a reasonable estimated time of delivery for each stage, and the project
as a whole
- documentation requirements
- feature-creep clauses (it's such a pain to have the project change
in mid-development ... you have to watch your own back for this.)
- maintenance requirements (to fix bugs for X number of days/months after
delivery ... NOT FOR ADDING FEATURES: do that in separate projects)
- compensation/fees
- payment terms (25% upon delivery of stage1, 100% by stage3, etc.)
For FREE projects ... just leave off the last two points. Even though a
project may be done pro bono, it should still be relatively chaos-free.
A chaotic project done for free will probably just end up being a waste of
time for your client, and mostly for you.
g.luck,
~Chris
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