If I ever take on freelance work, I won't charge hourly. Here's why.
Hourly pricing has a fundamental problem: it punishes efficiency.
The faster and better you are, the less you earn. A developer who solves your problem in 2 hours gets paid less than one who takes 8. The incentive is completely backwards.
It's also bad for the client.
Hourly means unpredictable costs. You start a project with an estimate, but every question, every revision, every unexpected complexity adds to the bill. The client has no idea what they're actually paying until it's over.
Fixed pricing fixes both problems.
The developer scopes the work upfront, prices it based on value and complexity, not hours, and delivers. If they finish early, great. If something takes longer than expected, that's their problem to manage, not the client's.
It also changes the relationship. Instead of a developer watching the clock, you have someone focused entirely on the outcome.
The only reason hourly pricing still exists is habit. It's familiar. It feels safe. But it protects the wrong person.
For the client: always ask for fixed pricing on well-defined work.
For the developer: price your value, not your time.
A feature that takes you 2 hours but saves the client $10,000 is not worth 2 hours of your rate. It's worth a percentage of what it saves them.
That's how I think about pricing. And when I work with clients, that's how I structure it.
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