About 6 months ago, I chose to work with a Salesforce agency that billed by the hour. At the time, I needed the opportunity and it was a fun project, so I accepted a reasonable hourly rate.
Fast forward to today, and it turns out I’m not compatible with hourly billing anymore, and the agency let me go. The main challenge was they expected me to estimate the amount of work their team needed. And after 2+ years of not providing estimates to my clients, it turns out I’m REALLY bad at it.
As a result of my too low estimate, the agency had to eat hours. They also rolled back some of my time. So the moment my project was over, they let me go before the next one started.
As you may be aware, I’ve been billing fixed prices for some time now. It’s significantly easier for everyone involved, and reduces the amount of administrative work. The concept of eating hours is completely foreign to me.
Most Salesforce agencies are built from the ground-up to be hourly, so often there’s a compatibility issue. I thought I would be able to work through it, and for a while I did, but obviously it didn’t last.
If you bill by the hour, how do you manage?
The takeaway
Once you shift from hourly billing to fixed prices, it’s really hard to go back. Even when you’re an experienced solution architect 🙂