

Ask HN: Reducing my hourly rate? - curtin

I do freelance work on the side and recently moved to a small town from mid-sized city. I've had a lot of opportunties to quote out jobs, but I was getting no response back (which in the past was never really a problem). Someone suggested to me that my hourly rate was way too high for the area, so I reduced it by half, but basically quote twice the hours (so in the end I make the same) and all of sudden I started getting work again. Is this a common thing to do? I feel a little bad about doing that, but the results have proved that the end result is the same. Any other suggestions on how others handle this?
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rgbrgb
Hm. In spirit, what you're doing seems fine (as you are quoting the same price
either way). However, when it actually comes down to giving them an invoice
with inflated hours, that is completely unethical. Definitely a tough one. The
unfortunate thing about billing for extra hours is that it makes you seem
slow. It does sound like you've had enough experience to know how long a job
will take so perhaps you could give quotes for the entire project without an
hourly rate.

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ianterrell
After a string of projects where I worked so fast I made half the money
estimated, I switched to fixed bid -- my next contract saw a 300% increase in
my effective hourly rate.

If the risk of going significantly over is small, it can work out in your
favor.

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russell
I did it once to a client who agreed to my standard rate and then tried to
squeexe me down. It felt vaguely unethical. At the time he was threatening to
give the work to someone who was willing to do it for $35/hr. There was no way
I could bill 120 hours/week, so I called his bluff. The other guy never
materialized.

OTOH car dealers do it all the time. They have a standard estimate from the
manufacturer, but if they get it done sooner, you dont get a lower price.

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maxdemarzi
Your customers ultimately care about the end result and their costs.
Concentrate on meeting their expectations and stop feeling bad because there
is nothing to feel bad about.

Deliver earlier than scheduled ('cause you know, you managed to squeeze "extra
hours" late into the night) and your customers will be even happier.

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throwmeaway4now
As an aside, how do you go about finding projects to submit quotes for in your
smaller market? I'm in a similar situation and thinking about going back to
freelance route (did this in Chicago for a while but I'm now in a smaller
market.)

