How Would You Charge This?

[Tee2072]

One of my clients is restructuring their whole company and are probably either going to eliminate my contract or, hopefully, just change it.

If the latter, they are asking me to quote for what we are calling 'bits and bobs'. I do 'bits and bobs' now, i.e. quick 5 minute web page update here and there, and only charging them for that 5 minutes because I know by the end of the month they will add up to a decent amount along with the rest of the work I do.

But if I am only doing 'bits and bobs', I can't figure out what to tell them.

Should I do something like 'every time you ask me to do something, it will be X amount for even part of an hour'? By 15 minute blocks? Get a chunk up front and use it up?!?

Any ideas?

I would imagine if you are doing less work for them it will take longer each time they ask you to do bits as you have to access the right info, files and refamiliarize yourself with it? I would make sure you consider that.

Also i wouldn't charge in blocks of less then half an hour.

Depends on what it is, PooPoo, but that's a good point.

I think I agree about 30 minute blocks.

Yep i think you should allow for transition time between clients and projects etc.

You could offer them a choice of either having to buy your time in larger chunks (e.g. min 30mins as suggested above) because if the work is going to be much less frequently it will take longer OR if they think they will still use you regularly, you could agree to a set monthly sum which guarantees them e.g. 20 hours on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, which can be used over the month in blocks of 5 or 10 minutes and added to if they run out of time. This means that you can dip in and out of the work as you currently do, confident that the income will be there at the end of the month.

That Head, is a fantastic idea.

Good idea!

Actually I'd charge by the hour - 15 minutes work actually for them does not equate to 14 minutes for you... admin/tax/nose-picking etc.

(Or half hour, just don't undersell yourself!)

We came to an agreement (which is reviewed every few months) about how many days per week/month it equated to on average.

It works for us, because money planning is better, but is worse, because you are slightly at the mercy of them agreeing how much your input is worth.