We bill fixed-scope and fixed-price for every engagement above $5,000. We've had exactly two clients ask us to switch to hourly. Neither stuck around.
Why hourly is bad for everyone
Hourly rewards slowness. The longer the engineer takes, the more they bill. The client knows this; the engineer knows this; the relationship runs on a low-grade adversarial dynamic from day one.
Fixed price rewards clarity. The engineer is incentivized to ship fast; the client knows what they owe. The only person who has to do real work is whoever's writing the scope.
The cost of doing the scope right
We spend three to five days on every proposal. The audit phase (which the client pays for at $499) does most of the work. By the time we quote, we've read the codebase, mapped the integrations, and identified the unknowns.
This is not free, but it's not the engineer's billable hour either. It's the cost of being able to quote with confidence.
What happens when we're wrong
We've over-quoted four times and under-quoted seven times in the last eighteen months. When we over-quote, we refund the difference at the end of the engagement. When we under-quote, we eat it.
The asymmetry is intentional. It forces us to scope better. After the third under-quote, we added the audit phase. After the fifth, we added a third-engineer review on every quote above $50k.
The numbers
Of the last fourteen quotes:
- 12 signed at the quoted price
- 1 walked away over price
- 1 negotiated a smaller scope at a smaller price
- 0 asked for hourly
The conversion rate is higher than industry hourly conversion. The margin is higher than hourly margin. The clients re-engage at a higher rate than hourly clients do.
That's the whole pitch. You should try it.
Founder. Sets the engineering bar. Runs every audit and signs off on every migration plan.