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A comment on Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a con... by ghaff on Saturday December 07, 2019 @10:24AM (#21730705)
It does depend. When I was a consultant, we tried to charge based on value (by engagement). OTOH, clients often still thought in terms of hours. If we were on-site for one engagement that was only going to take half a day, they'd often try to hook us up with some other group as well given we were there and had the time. (Typically we'd go along as these were long-time clients.)

And some areas like law are very hourly-based. The one time I did some legal work it was strictly based on time. (At a very good hourly rate including travel time.)

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Re:Ask HN: What mistakes did you make when starting as a con... by onreact on Sunday December 08, 2019 @12:57PM (#21737127)
Yeah, true, that may happen. Ideally you get a combined payment by hours with a bonus for performance. That is often a bit complex or tricky though.

You mitigate the risk of getting paid not enough in case the hours spiral out of control while still getting paid a lot when you outperform expectations.

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