Southeast USA. $100/hr for everything (meetings, development work, bug fixes, ...).
Took me a while to be honest with myself and finally charge for all of my time. Maybe it's confidence?
Never had an issue from a client with this arrangement.
Took me a while to be honest with myself and finally charge for all of my time. Maybe it's confidence?
Never had an issue from a client with this arrangement.
But I’d like to know where you find work because I haven’t found many clients in the SE that wish to spend money.
Is that a different term for "mechanics"?
A mechanic is someone who can throw parts at a car but isn’t likely to be able to perform in-depth diagnostics or advanced repairs especially on newer cars with complex electrical systems.
A mechanic in Alabama should expect to earn $50k-$60k while a tech is closer to $110k or so.
I know at least 9 guys in my county who never finished high school and couldn’t compose a proper sentence if their lives depended on it yet they earn $150k+ per year repairing automobiles.
But $100 per hour is too cheap. I charged more than that for carpentry repairs to homes and commercial buildings.
The local PepBoys charges $122 per hour and they’re aren’t capable of much more than oil changes and tire repairs.
And then they can pay 100 hours for a narrow scope of perfect, or they can pay 20 hours and iterate until it's good enough (bugfixes).
We’ve never had a client push back on that.
There are very few people who would agree to pay even for the initial meeting.
After signing the contract, you can bill for all the time you spent working, meeting, thinking, answering emails or phone calls, or even being on standby or warming up a seat at a client site.
In case the client set up a meeting and then canceled it on the short notice, or worse, didn't show up at all - you can also charge for this if you've lost the opportunity to work on other things.
Of course it's best to discuss this with the customer before signing the contract, and if possible made it clear in the contract itself.