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independence4 unconnected
applies to

b2b, no audience needed

assumes $100 and up

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

17 claims · 8 articles · 4 receipts

window

2012-03-18 → 2024-03-29

4 builders who never spoke to each other

Bill in weeks or days, not hours

An itemised hourly invoice invites the client to audit which of your activities counted as real work, which is how meetings and project management become an argument. A larger increment folds the thinking time into the rate and keeps the conversation on what was delivered, and the consultants reporting the highest effective rates bill weekly. Keep tracking time anyway for your own honesty, take the fee before the work starts where you can, and split into paid stages when the buyer will not pay it all in advance.

The method

  1. 01

    Bill by the day to drop time tracking entirely and to stop the invoice exposing how the work was done, which keeps the conversation on results.

  2. 02

    Bill by the week when you want to price on value and the scope is still loose, since the larger increment keeps the client focused on what is being delivered.

  3. 03

    Bill in units of a week or a sprint rather than hours, so the meetings and thinking time sit inside the rate instead of appearing as line items the client resents paying for.

  4. 04

    Handle the objection to daily billing with a positioning line: you give one client your full attention for the day, so they are not paying for you switching between jobs.

  5. 05

    Bill weekly or at a fixed price rather than itemising hours, which stops the client auditing which of your activities counted as real work.

What it returned

  • $500

    Brennan says every consultant he knows with an effective rate of $500 to $1,000 an hour bills weekly, and it is his own preferred structure.

  • 40

    UnlimitedWP sells packages of 40 and 80 hours, while August 99 sells blocks ranging from 20 hours to 200.

  • James says some of his fixed bids suffered major scope creep and burned him badly, and he was chasing overdue invoices for a long time.

  • Zach says this daily offer was the first structure that got him real leverage and money, and clients liked it because sites shipped quickly while most developers take months.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.

More in pricing

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.