Ask HN: Consulting work on the weekends -- what should I know to protect myself?
Any advice is helpful, thank you.
Any advice is helpful, thank you.
In 10+ years of consulting, I've never gotten a complaint about the detail of my invoices.
Don't nickle and dime your clients with emails. If you're writing a document or something that needs to be emailed, sure, bill for the documentation work.
I also don't bill for anything that takes less than 5 minutes, like one line text updates, etc. It's not worth my time to track that stuff.
Now I have something like a retainer. The idea being that I get paid X dollars per month that includes 15 hours of work. If I end up working more than that, I bill $150 per hour. Because this customer is very low maintenance, I've never done anything near 15 hours in a month.
I think I actually get paid slightly less but it's more predictable for both parties.