
Ask HN: Do you (freelancers) charge for emails? - pi3141592
I know this question has been asked and answered many times, but I think new answers can bring value me as well as to others here..<p>Answering for emails is destructive in terms of context switching - 
You are working for client A and then suddenly an email comes from client B, which totally wastes time due to context switching etc,
So even if the answer to the email takes 30 secs, it&#x27;s still destructive..
Also, I have to stop the hours timer for client A because i cannot charge him for money while i read and answer to client B&#x27;s email ..
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tptacek
No, that's crazy.

This is another reason not to bill hourly: it forces you into a mindset where
you start accounting for things like individual emails.

Bill daily or weekly, and raise your rates to the point where you don't have
to count beans to provide decent customer service.

~~~
brudgers
Good customer service is meeting or exceeding expectations. That means it
starts with setting expectations, and most consultants would do well to
clarify that being responsive is standard, being on-call is not. A client
should never be left with the impression that email is the best channel for
urgent-and-important-low-latency communications. If it requires immediate
response, pick up the phone...and text.

The fixed price versus time and materials evaluation is orthogonal. The
question could just as easily have been about how fast to respond to emails on
a fixed price contract...at the root, it's a screw not a nail.

'Nickle and diming' is a synonym for consulting. Charging for an email is just
part and parcel of communicating the value of one's time under a time and
materials contract.

~~~
tptacek
A client can pay:

(a) $1600/day to a consultant who will reliably answer dumb emails, or

(b) $150/hr to a consultant who will attempt to educate them about whether
they should send emails and how that impacts their cost structure

My experience is that clients prefer (a). For that reason, among several
others, I think I'd rather be consultant (a). It worked pretty well for me for
the last ~10 years.

Hopefully we agree that there's not much room in the market for consultant
(c), who _bills_ for the emails.

~~~
brudgers
Your experience is your experience. I don't doubt that what you have found
works, works for you. Markets vary geographically, by industry, and by capital
structure. Clients vary in expectations. Contractors vary in temperament.
Projects vary in firmness and in scope. The only universal is that everyone
should double their rates.

I did my first freelance gig in 1990. It involved Leroying. I've used fixed
price. I've been billed out hourly to buy a job by a big firm that _always_
did fixed price. I've chunked my time in half days. I've chunked it by the
hour. I've eaten phone calls and charged for them. I've had clients who have
more money than you or I will ever see and waitresses...and waitresses are
great clients because they pay in cash and always have some in their pocket at
every meeting. I've handed off a roll of drawings for $18,000 in cash from a
safe placed in my other hand in the back of bar, drug deal style.

Some clients want high maintenance. Some are respectful of the fact that my
time is money. Some are even charities and get some services for free.
Businesses aren't charities.

All of which is to say is that reasons I wouldn't bill for phone calls or
whatever were:

    
    
      1. I was afraid of pissing clients off.
      2. I didn't want to be that disciplined.
    

One day I realized that clients who get pissed off paying for my time aren't
going to care what or how I bill. They simply don't want to pay and clients
that don't want to pay aren't worth having because...well, they tend not to
pay. So billing hourly and nickling and diming and requiring a healthy
retainer against final invoice [along with the aforementioned higher rate]
turns out to be a useful tool for screening clients. And providing a rate at
the initial conversation is a useful screen for random leads.

So yeah, I'll bill 15 minutes for an email. It takes me at least that long to
do it right. Charging aligns my interests (getting paid) with those of my
clients (my doing the things they hired me to do right and not cutting
corners). If it's not worth billing for then doing it isn't probably very
important.

It is worth noting that I typically have a single point of contact. It's part
of the industry landscape. Yesterday I was talking with a friend of mine from
Jr. High. He's a chemist and the primary stay at home parent and does
consulting on the side. In his industry royalties are money on the table: I
learn something new every day.

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zhte415
IANAL. I don't charge for emails, they do, telephone calls too, by the minute.

Surely it depends on the contractual agreements you enter. If you have to
provide timely support, define timely. If they can't accept a price for a
timely response they're children.

> You are working for client A and then suddenly an email comes from client B,
> which totally wastes time due to context switching etc

Don't get so vexed. Your time is yours. It is defined in the contract with the
client. If they make an unusual request then cool, but 'maker time' is pretty
pointless if you get drawn to distractions without your own 'manager time'
planning ahead on how to avoid it.

------
codeaken
Only read and answer emails a couple of times during the day. For the rest of
the day keep your email client closed and notifications off.

You can even add a little notice in your email signature that this is how you
operate.

~~~
pi3141592
thanks for the reply. on one hand what you are saying make sense.. too much
distractions will make my other clients suffer and to me lose some money on
the way.. on the other hand - I personally would not go to a freelance guy who
only answers my emails 3 times a day.. what if i have an emergency ? (and
yes,that is very subjective, i know).

I would prefer to receive fast email replies with a lot of value, rather than
an automated response which would make me think i am using the services of a
large bureaucratized corporation that treats me like a small fish..

~~~
MarkCole
Lets imagine you check your email 4 times a day instead. In an 8 hour workday,
you would check it around once every 2 hours. So the absolute maximum time
your client would wait for a reply would be 2 hours during working hours.
Would your current clients find this unreasonable?

There are not many issues that justify a "NEED A REPLY THIS VERY SECOND"
response. You should find that most of your clients aren't sitting at their
inbox awaiting your reply, but also get on with their other work. For
emergency situations, an emergency number to call if they need a response
might be the answer, but stress it's use only for dire emergencies that are
costing them real money if not fixed immediately.

This means you can have dedicated time focused on emails, allowing you to form
better replies. Cutting back to 3 times a day would be even better. One when
you start, once at your lunch break, then once at the end of the day. With an
8 hour work day, 3 times a day is still only a 2 and a half hour maximum wait
time.

~~~
pi3141592
sounds reasonable.. thanks

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Zigurd
It depends on how long the answer is. If it's more than a sentence or two,
I'll reply with "I'll write you a brief report on that by day after tomorrow."
and that work will be listed on my next invoice. If it's a fixed bid, I'll
estimate time for the work and submit a change to the bid. The key is to
explicitly notify the client that it will take billable time if in fact it
will.

If a client is peppering you with short questions, collect them into a single
response. Sometimes you may have to set expectations about what you'll charge
for and what falls below that threshold.

I very much like the "pin" feature of Inbox, and I use it to keep hot issues
within easy reach and to make it visible to me when they pile up. As others
have pointed out, next-day response is not rude, Set expectations about that,
too, if you have to.

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insoluble
Yes. I include a reasonable amount of context switching time. Also, say I am
trying to sleep and I am thinking about a client's problem; I will include
that time too, but only if significant. I prorate the time if it is only
partially productive.

As for having two clients at once, if the time spent on both clients and their
emails is about the same, then there is no need to stop the timer for small
emails. It all sort of blends together. Overmanagement of time is a waste of
time.

Overall, the way I see it is that time working for a client needs to be
counted, but it is not that important to distinguish how much time is spent on
each specific task. The bottom line is what matters.

------
davismwfl
No. Even past clients as long as they are not abusing us we will always
respond. We try to respond the same day, but many times it is the next day
regardless of who we are responding to. That is unless of course we are
actively communicating about something that needs resolution.

Checking email a couple of times a day is not a big deal and responding than,
worse case is usually 4-5 hour gap. If something is more urgent the phone is a
better solution anyway. I will say that it is a balance though as some clients
if you don't respond to an email in 15 minutes are picking up the phone and
calling you wanting their answer immediately. So you have to set the
boundaries with clients and make sure their expectations are reasonable and
that you are not being unreasonable yourself.

Also one other point, when you are managing multiple clients, a quick email
response that says you have received their email and will get back to them by
EOD, or next day etc is all they really need. So it doesn't have to be a huge
drawn out email. This helps when you are working on Client A and Client B
sends an email.

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michaelmcmillan
I think it is your responsibility to make sure you dedicate yourself 100% when
you're working for a client. That means not being carried away reading emails
related to other matters when you're on the clock.

With that being said, we just charge a general fee each month called
"Administration & maintenance". It's the equivalent of 4 hours consulting.
That usually covers any time spent not directly impacting the work for the
client.

~~~
pi3141592
thanks for your reply. I liked the idea of a "Administration & maintenance"
fee, and it sounds very reasonable to charge for a few hours of "emails &
phones" stuff.. thanks 1\. Do you charge the normal rate for that or a
discounted rate? 2\. Do you not accept clients who do not accept this type of
monthly fee ? in other words - how important is this to you ?

~~~
saluki
I would recommend adding this Admin time in to your hourly or project rates.
Most clients aren't going to be happy with an added admin/maint. fee. If it's
built in to your rate it's easier for everyone to handle and you won't have
them questioning your invoice for an extra 3 or 4 hours of time.

Plus if it's built in you'll worry less about tracking time for emails.

Keep it simple, you need email to stay in contact with clients/getting new
work so just check it a few times per day especially if feel it's becoming a
problem. Responding fast takes a little time, but will keep your clients
happy. Another great option is to hire a VA to review your emails, respond
when they can and forward you the important ones. Maybe setup a mail@ or
support@ or project@ email for clients to use instead of your specific work
email.

------
cmdrfred
I work in IT and I make 15 dollars an hour - gas/tolls/and maintenance of my
vehicle (I drive about 150 miles a week). I bill for a text message.

------
fnordfnordfnord
You do if you have a client that won't stop pestering you whilst you work. One
way to phrase it is to have "tiers" or "levels" of escalation by turnaround
time and charge/charge more for faster turnaround.

