I went from hourly, to per project, to weekly billings. When I charged hourly I ended up working A LOT more than 9-5. Per project work was good but I ended up losing a lot of prospects in the quote. Since many of my projects ran into the 20-40k range, my closing rate was 1/10 (already pre-screened, what I deemed as high quality prospects). This made me feel like crap. Instead of per project, I decided to increase the rate, so now a project may be 30-50k+, figure out how many weeks it may take me to complete it (rough idea, but this is not important) and then divide into a weekly rate. What ended up happening is me tripling my hourly rate and invoicing weekly. This was game changing for closing leads, now my rate is probably 8/10. You get all the benefits of having to work a lot less but charging a lot more. I will be honest, some days I feel like shit (who doesn't) and I don't work at all. I don't feel bad because on the days that I feel fantastic I get into the zone and knock out a TON of work and usually get ahead. Client sees progress weekly and they are happy. It helps them that they don't have to pay a ton of money in 2-3 payments and can spread it over the course of months.
In terms of happiness, freelancing definitely comes in flavors. There is the grunt work, the highly paid freelancer, the consultant and the product-based business until you go full startup or large company. I have seen all tiers. Currently I am a step short of having my own product while I figure out what that will be. You definitely need business acumen and people skills to succeed in the consultant stage. For product business you gotta go a step beyond that and either do really well as a consultant to bootstrap, or just work your ass off to get it going. My advice for anyone in freelancing now, who does not have people skills and gets latched onto hourly work, you may want to reconsider your choices. Freelancing can be highly stressful and demoralizing, unless you take the steps to go into consulting or beyond. It's a ladder, just like your corporate gig, you gotta do the work to move up or suffer where you are stuck.
In terms of happiness, freelancing definitely comes in flavors. There is the grunt work, the highly paid freelancer, the consultant and the product-based business until you go full startup or large company. I have seen all tiers. Currently I am a step short of having my own product while I figure out what that will be. You definitely need business acumen and people skills to succeed in the consultant stage. For product business you gotta go a step beyond that and either do really well as a consultant to bootstrap, or just work your ass off to get it going. My advice for anyone in freelancing now, who does not have people skills and gets latched onto hourly work, you may want to reconsider your choices. Freelancing can be highly stressful and demoralizing, unless you take the steps to go into consulting or beyond. It's a ladder, just like your corporate gig, you gotta do the work to move up or suffer where you are stuck.