My point exactly...
Actually, my whole point was that I try to bill:
(value to client) div (my willingness to do this particular project)
I agree, and from both sides of the table. I've provided added services to projects where the total value of the added services were a multiple of the initial cost, without getting any complaints or requests to lower the budget. I've also paid many extra hours for additional work and never felt bad about paying for any of it; and I'm very cost conscious and drive a hard bargainer when I get an initial offer.
I think it's a trust thing, after the other person has shown that they're capable of providing high quality services, cost is not so important any more, while if you're just getting quotes from people, you have no way to find out the true qualities of the people you're asking (usually). Even references from people you know personally sometimes end up blowing up in your face, a guy may be having a bad day when he's working on your project, screw up and refuse to fix it. Relationship-breaker right there, while he may have done an (objectively) great job at your brother in law's project last year.
1) When I'm thinking about the project in the shower (where all the real thinking is being done) shouldn't the meter run? Apparently from the original post, the only billable time is the typing time, which is a little bit funny.
2) How do you know if you're fast or slow? Are you even consistent? Sometimes a stupid feature takes me half a day; sometimes something really complicated snaps together in an instant.
3) Even more so, the client has no clue of what time it takes to do something (and how could he, given that I haven't got many clues either, beforehand). If I tell him that it took me 3 hours to do X and 5 minutes to do Y he will be shocked! He will think I'm crazy, or bullshitting him, or that I'm trying to convey some other message that he'll spend the next week trying to decode.
4) What about warm-up time? When I get back to a project I left a week ago, it takes about an hour to get up to speed; how should this hour be billed?
Besides, every theory of pricing tells us that price should NEVER be based on costs. Price should be based on value because that's what it is: price == value. The problem of course is that the client won't tell you what the value is.
What I end up doing is:
- if I can get an idea of the client's budget, and I find this budget acceptable, then that's my price
- if not, my personal rule of thumb is (maybe counter-intuitively) to bid low on things that are new for me (and interesting), because I really want to learn the skills and get the reference on my portfolio; and to bid relatively high on things I know well, because I don't really care to get the project or not, and if I do get it I expect it to contribute financially to all the other stuff.
(So if you want to hire me cheap, make me do something I've never done).
Also, it's been my experience that clients care about the price before the project begins, but never after.