Android Question Cost per hour? Cost per project? How do you do it?

Well... ofcourse here the thread is not for those questions...

But generally those prices are not Greek... 200$ per hour... not even 20$ per hour...

General I am giving a price for a project and end time for it... this is more friendly and I think end customer feel better...

But my problem ... is ... that I can't find a way to making money for ever.... taking an update fee forever.. from projects will help me a lot...

My jobs are always one off... and payed updates for a small period..

When I went on my first marketing course as a career engineer working in manufacturing with no marketing experience I was told "The right price for a product is the highest price that the customer is prepared to pay." This is the same principal as you use when you sell your car or you sell your house. I am sure that is the way that Bill Gates got much of his money - it is the way the world works.

From a point of view of a non-pro dev, hourly invoicing makes me, as a customer, think "we can do it in 10h, but will take 15h to charge me more!".
Even if the project at hand is not your cup of tea, and it will mean learning something new along the way, the customer must not be charged for that learning time. Plus, it will allow you to more easily take on similar projects.
As a customer, I would be more confortable with a fixed quote, even if it meant being over priced, than an hour fee that makes pricing uncertain.

Hello @amorosik

amorosik said:

Or do you make a flat rate cost based on the difficulty of the project to be realized?

Click to expand...

I charge per project. I look at the project as a whole, decide how long it should take me to develop, add a few months on top (just in case other things crop up), and then I give a price that I'm happy with.

I do not believe that I would get away with charging clients a hourly rate. But then again I've never tried charging hourly rates before for an entire project, so who know, it could actually work for me.

I do however charge an hourly rate when it comes to updating an already completed project or for doing other work.

As always, it depends. IF (BIG if) the project is clearly defined and I am familiar with what is involved I will quote a fixed price. IF I think other clients will also like and use this feature then I will lower the price as the cost will be amortized across other users. IF it is a challenging project I think I will enjoy I charge less. IF it involves learning new things that I have no interest in learning and don't think I will use again I DO charge for the learning curve and I do tell the customer that I am charging him more because I am going to have to learn useless $%^@ . ECs (Engineering changes) on fixed price projects are always by the hour. Make that clear and make your hourly rate for ECs clear.

And finally and most important. When negotiating maintain the attitude that you don't give a $%^@ whether you get the job or not. Remember the client needs you.

Finally @Brian Dean I sort of agree about MS. I was there during the Office Wars - installing this stuff for lots of clients. There big competitor was Lotus. Lotus had stringent licensing requirements and setting up their software on a network to ensure compliance was a pain in the ass. Microsoft Office on the other hand had NO compliance restrictions and what I found was that was sort of the ultimate free market pricing system. Clients would by the number of licenses that they felt provided value to the company and let everyone have it on their desktop. Which really makes sense. Why buy a $300 license for 10 people who need only a Word Processor 2 hours a week? Just buy a couple of licenses. This no enforced license policy provided exactly what you are talking about.