I'm seriously considering never doing fixed rate projects for clients ever again. The conversation will likely go like this, though:

"How much to build my website?"
"$100/hour."
"Sorry, I don't think you heard me correctly. I asked how much to build the whole website."
"$150/hour"
"Wait, you changed the rate! Why won't you give me a fixed cost?"
"Why won't you pay me for my time?"
"Because I can get it done for a cheaper fixed cost somewhere else!"
"But how do you know that's actually cheaper?"
"What do you mean?"
"We pad fixed price projects precisely because we fear not being fully paid for our time."
"Oh."

Just use my bosses method.
"Always just quote em 300 hours."

We lose 1000s of dollars, all the time, but there's gotta be a reason he's sticking to old faithful... right?

@Composmentis always quote on at least 500 for "basic" projects and 1000 for advanced projects.

I find the opposite to be true. Hourly rates tend to punish you for being efficient. I Price based on value

@windlessuser on the other hand you can controll your efficiency

@KDSBest and that's also a point of contention for the client
. Any slight setback will be met with unpleasntries... If something only takes me half am hour, it takes me half an hour but it gives the client 100x the value of what is be paid for that

Stick to hourly method when you don't really know the details of project requirements. Use fixed price when you feel you can finish it within short time and hourly based method will not give you enough

@Wasim I've never encountered a project where it didn't go on and on from the original fixed price quote. That's where I always lose out.

Then u r not going deeper in requirement details

@Wasim sometimes that's the case. Mostly it's just clients being asshats and adding stuff while insisting that it's what they meant when they said they wanted XYZ. This is the human part of all projects that I despise. It's simply not possible to write down or draw every assumption, presumption, understanding, semantic, or intention that's inside of peoples' heads. I can add a clause to a contract stating that anything not specified will be $X/hr but there's always someone who'll lawyer up over it or just refuse to pay.

You are right, some clients would do that.. but we try to analyze deeper when it comes to fixed price to overcome any potential demands over agreed functions. However, it happens sometimes..

@windlessuser what you are saying is soething normal. If your cost is the same as the result for your client he will make a loss.

It's a hard topic to discuss in comments.

You're all doing it wrong.

You make a few templates for your CRM/framework.

Then you create these vertical columns on your own site, with these happy little checkmarks. The first one says "Starter $20/m", and includes a quick copy paste of text and logo into a template, done by an intern. Then it goes up all the way to some super aggressively priced "Enterprise" tier, which includes x hours of work per month on custom plugins.

That way you don't just receive an hourly rate, you keep receiving it every month.

@bittersweet Tiered pricing was the first thing I tried. People hated it because the niche I serve doesn't have a frequency of work that justifies spending monthly. The one-off work at the low tier always went over budget due to their dithering around.

@GodHatesMe My comment was a bit of a joke about the current state of webservices, but a tired subscription model can work.

The tough part is that you probably need a combination of seo, social media, targeted internet ads and cold calling to get started. Lead generation is not fun... but just having an informative website with good seo is rarely enough to achieve critical mass.

@GodHatesMe I'd try to set up a few experiments... where is the largest difference between "has no website" and "needs a website" — small restaurants who want to show off a menu? local concerts and events who need to sell tickets? hobby entrepreneurs with a small webshop?

Categorize them, target them, and try to learn their specific requirements and demands. Can you solve the problems of the market segment with existing platforms, can you build a plugin, or will it be a custom project?

You can cold call local businesses without even trying to make a sale, just state it's part of a study, ask a few short questions like whether they have a website, what features or support they're missing, how much it's worth to them.

Once you have a small dataset, you can determine your area of focus, your exact service packages and prices, and use a small advertising budget in a very targeted way.

The market for "just a website" is tough. If you can specialize and make "The WordPress for sports clubs" or "Magento for mechanic shops" with custom dynamic tooling, you can add real value to businesses and sell on what differentiates you. Holding a monopoly in a niche is easier than broadly competing with everyone in an oversaturated market.

@windlessuser fucking gimme a high five right meow