> Aka, you are a small business. Aka, never do hourly and fixed cost projects only.
My reading is “never charge hourly, and never charge fixed cost”. Am I misunderstanding? What is the third alternative? Retainer + hourly? Something else?
One strategy I've seen used is a fixed cost for the project (delivered to spec) combined with an hourly retainer for support and changes. Sometimes there is even an explicit carve out for changes during the development so you can avoid scope creep derailing the project (and the relationship with the client).
You don't want to get into nickel and diming the client: "why did it take X hours to set up a DNS? and what is a DNS? Do we even need a DNS?" etc.