I had done work at Ford and when a project came up there with IBM involved, Ford recommended me to them. Since it was my first contract with IBM, they didn't know anything about me and hired a project manager as a liason. I had already submitted an overall bid for the project, and since it would take more than 6 months, they wanted to do it with milestones so that I actually got some money along the way and they could see that I was capable of doing the work. And, I think they were actually looking out for me, because they knew that someone up the corporate ladder could change their mind and the whole project might get scrapped, they could get someone else to do it, etc.

A detailed project plan is something that both sides have to agree on. The project manager gave me guidance on IBM's expectations but it was up to me to define the "Statement of Work" and I defined the milestones so that there was one every month or two. It was their idea to do this part on an hourly basis. For one thing, the group that was putting my contract together didn't have it ready, so the only way I could work was hourly. A project plan was their requirement, not mine.

Doing a project plan for a fixed cost is doable too. The bottom line is, don't work for free unless you want to. If they want a project plan for a big project but won't pay for your time to put it together, that would be a huge red flag for me and I'd probably pass. If you are the one that requires the project plan, that's a little different and I could see where a customer might balk on paying for that.