I'm not sure I've ever talked to someone who moved from hourly to daily and regretted doing so.
Right now I'm doing some actual consulting (in contrast to contract work), and being available by the hour has been helpful. I turn up at a couple of regular meetings; when some issue comes up that I can help with, I help.
On a day rate, the expense is large enough that people only want to call you in when there's something they perceive as big and serious. But when it's just time worked, they're happy to grab you for a short chat. Which often turns into something larger. And it makes it easy to leave the contract open; I've been doing this with one client for circa 6 months. That has let me influence them a lot more than a short burst of days would have done.
* Make it harder to negotiate good rates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420782
* Are a pernicious drag on your client relationships: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103417
* Deprive you of opportunities to do lightweight things for free without setting weird expectations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4102639
* Obscure the actual value you're providing to clients, which isn't simply getting technical things done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103207
* Are part of the difference between transactional contracting and consulting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2909923
It's a bit lame, I'd like to be a better person who can just do a normal 8 hour day, but so far I have always failed. One reason I like freelancing is because I can only charge for the hours I actually work. It's also a major reason employment is not for me.
Real productivity of an 8 our day is more likely in the range of 4 to 6 hours. But you still put 8 hours on your timesheet.
The next big improvement is moving from daily to per project :)
Estimation is usually so bad that you will never a curate ly estimate your cost base so will always resent the last month of the project.
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?
- 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.
See more of tptacek's posts on this topic: https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=tptacek+hourly...
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.
The client will ask for a specific thing to be done. Give the client a specific price for that thing. That's it.
How you calculate that is your business. Personally, I figure out the worst-case scenario and price it for that. If I finish earlier, because of my brilliance, well we can just call that profit.
You're happy because you just finished something high quality and in good time. The client is thrilled because they knew what they were going to pay, got what they wanted, and got it quickly and professionally. The client didn't have to worry about hourly rates or daily rates, unexpected surprises, etc. they knew what they were going to pay. You took the risk out of the transaction for the client and made a good amount of cash for yourself. Everybody wins.
Also remember that part of the idea of upping your billing increment is not accepting piecemeal work.
In my experience it is simply unworkable: the client will provide the vaguest of specifications and providing them with a set-in-stone price raises unrealistic expectations. The requirements are simply too fuzzy at the outset of a project to be able to price it accurately.
Of course the solution only becomes more concrete as the project progresses and requirements change and crystallize based on feedback. This is expected behaviour of course, but I've never been able to reconcile it with project-based billing.
Do you simply allow a certain buffer zone and take the good with the bad?
Experience helps with the above. Obviously you can never know precisely how much effort something will take. Stuff comes up. Even if the work itself is stupid easy, it might take you 2 hours to find the exact line of code that needs to be changed and sometimes it takes 5 minutes. And you never know which is which. So charge for 2 hours.
> the client will provide the vaguest of specifications and providing them with a set-in-stone price raises unrealistic expectations.
Clearly define the parameters of the project. Clearly define what you will do. Don't do any more or any less than that.
If the client needs something extra done, and this happens, simply price that out separately.
> The requirements are simply too fuzzy at the outset of a project to be able to price it accurately.
Example?
I don't want to give you advice one way or another, because I'm not Indian, so anything I would say is bullshit. Talk to some developers in India who aren't just above average, but are in fact, stellar. Some of them are probably making good money. Ask them what they do, they'll be able to give you the best advice for the Indian market.
If you spend a couple of hours trying to concentrate before realizing you didn't really get anything done, you're just messing around and you need a break, take the day off and don't charge for it.
It of course depends on the work you do and so forth. If you are contracted by day for a job that require 8 hours of availability time, then you should probably work those 8 hours.