Today, I’m exploring the contrast between how WordPress developers offer value to small clients, and how developers are paid.
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the strange and wonderful world of WordPress small client work. (In general, I’ll define this as work for clients whose overall budget is $5,000 or less.)
Today, I’m exploring a major contrast in this work: the contrast between how a good WordPress developer offers value to the client, and how that developer is paid. I’ll look at the origins of this contrast, and offer recommendations from my own experience.
To start off, let’s look at a developer’s most important function—not touching code, but providing guidance:
The Importance of Guiding Projects to the Right Solutions
The right solutions that will make a web project a success are not usually the solutions a client would find by herself.
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Thank you for this insightful article. I especially liked the “share knowledge for free in order to build trust” approach.
However, there is something I don’t understand about billing hourly : I suppose that you do give your client an estimate of how many hours you are going to spend implementing their project, and how much it is going to cost them in total – an information crucial to them as they have a small budget.
1) How is that different from billing a fixed amount for a project ?
2) Then you have to disclose your hourly rate. Do they understand why it is that high, or do you have to spend some time justifying it ?
Great questions. Here are my two cents on each: 1) You’re right that hourly projects still need full-project estimates, but fixed billing and hourly billing do work out differently in practice. Just to make something up: If I asked you to build me a house and you said you thought $200,000 sounded right, you might make a whole lot of money if the house turned out to be very easy to build — or, more likely, you might start to sweat when things went over the budget you originally estimated. Also, when scope changes, you’ll tend to either work for free, or to disappoint the client. Let’s say I don’t like the lighting in the kitchen. It’s “only” $300 to replace. Will you do it as a favor to me? (I’m paying you $200,000, after all.) Since the project costs one big lump sum, it’s difficult to get paid for “small” changes, whereas with hourly billing, the client can make adjustments as the project goes along, paying for what matters and not for what doesn’t. So fixed billing is best when you have a very standardized product – and in my work, hyper-standardizing my product without hyper-standardizing my clients (which… Read more »
Thank you so much for your detailed answer! Your analogy with construction work helped me understand and gave me a lot to think about.
(I’m just sorry I din’t answer sooner)
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Great insights, Fred. While I appreciate the concept of value-based pricing, some folks often forget the mindset of the small business owner. I’ve also found success with “padding” the hour estimates a bit to ensure that expenses are covered.
I also appreciate your goal of getting to the client early. I’ve had to “recover” sites from other horrible e-commerce platforms (and themes) simply because it will save ME time and the client money to work with something tried and true.
Always appreciate your articles (and the Up and Running series!!!) 🙂
jr
Thanks a ton, Jason! 🙂
Good article however , I find it sometimes frustrating on the hourly charge when clients think you can do something in less time they they think it really takes. Example: I had client using Hubspot CTA and they wanted to integrate into their WP site however the form is the context of a javascript This means the form uses the theme basic styling, which did not match the fancy visual they created with Hubspot. They wanted it to match. So I had two options. Create another script or use Gravity Forms and some custom css to match the style. Either way they both would have taken about the same amount of time and I spent a few hours setting this up and testing. Client loves that we matched their look but was disappointed that we did not do it in like 30 minutes. So some expectations of whats going into that hourly rate need to be discussed up front. Then again you will often find yourself repeating it too. This particular client pays well and on-time however, they look at every opportunity to cut costs. When I remind them that their in-house rate for employees covers G&A (General and Administrative)… Read more »
I’ve found that it is best to set a minimum. In my case, I have an hourly rate, a 1/2 hour rate, and 15 minute/minimum rate. If the client sends something to do and it only takes 2 minutes it still costs whatever it is for 15 minutes. In most cases I only use this for quick updates. Minimums are strictly enforced so the client is encouraged to send enough work to fill that time.