Ask HN: Freelancers, thoughts on charging by the hour vs. fixed fee?
I've starter freelancing recently (~4mo) and billing clients by hour. My current dilemma is regarding continuing on hourly billing vs. fixed-fee projects.
The biggest argument against charging by the hour is that you are punished for being efficient. While this is sort of true, I also find that hourly work gives you more freedom to approach the work with a "craftsmanship" mindset. We all know good work takes time.
I worry that if I start taking fixed-fee projects the incentive to make good software will be gone (the faster I deliver, the better). There's no incentive for documenting things, writing tests, creating a CI/CD pipeline or any of that. These things simply become nice-to-haves that will not matter once you deliver the project and cash yourself out.
Thoughts? Curious to hear the experience of who's been doing this for longer than me!
The biggest argument against charging by the hour is that you are punished for being efficient. While this is sort of true, I also find that hourly work gives you more freedom to approach the work with a "craftsmanship" mindset. We all know good work takes time.
I worry that if I start taking fixed-fee projects the incentive to make good software will be gone (the faster I deliver, the better). There's no incentive for documenting things, writing tests, creating a CI/CD pipeline or any of that. These things simply become nice-to-haves that will not matter once you deliver the project and cash yourself out.
Thoughts? Curious to hear the experience of who's been doing this for longer than me!