I see this advice over and over again, but I'm really interested in reasoning behind it.
Hourly rate works fine for situations where one day you work 3 hours, and another day - 9 hours. The day-rate by default assumes that you at least work for 8 hours. So why bring this unnecessary constraint?
Some reasoning for switching away from hourly billing:
- Less time spent tracking hours
- Less risk of client quibbling about time spent on each task
- Disassociation from hourly rates (e.g. a large client may pay $20K a week for an important project, whereas people may balk at a $500-1000 equivalent hourly rate)
- More likelihood of working on larger, more important projects (less risk of the project falling apart, not getting paid, etc)
A daily rate will limit your client pool, but in a good way: bigger, more serious, and richer companies. A weekly rate will do this even more-so. But if you can reach the big fish and convince them of your value, more lucrative.
I see. It makes sense for short-term-ish projects.
But I had experience of long-term working with the client, where there are no milestones. There is just an unlimited continuous flow of work to be done. So if you charge daily, that most likely implies 8 hours of work per day. Basically, it is more like a regular employment, but with a freedom of working whatever hours you want, including zero.
I was just summing up the worked hours at the end of the month and billed with it.
Hourly rate works fine for situations where one day you work 3 hours, and another day - 9 hours. The day-rate by default assumes that you at least work for 8 hours. So why bring this unnecessary constraint?
Also, why is a week-rate more ambitious?