For freelancers...
Do you specify your hourly rate upon being asked (early on in process), or do you say you set a fixed budget (based on a proposal) for new clients?
I've read that specifying the hourly rate upfront can weed out deadbeats, and/or clients you don't want to work with, is this true?
Overall how do you, as freelancers, work through this process?
Do price high; weeding out deadbeats is just one of the wins for doing that.
Without knowing anything else about how you work, my recommendation is to select only those clients for whom doing the work of a proposal on spec is worth it, and then: write proposals for them.
You can write a proposal with a single total project number in it without committing to deliver that project in exactly X billable days, for what it's worth.
Pricing a freelance job on a per hour basis means that you and your client will have conflicting goals. You will want to work as many hours as possible in order to maximize revenue and your client will try to get you to work as few hours as possible (in order to save money). When you work on a per project fee, it's in both parties' best interest to complete the task as quickly as possible - the client has a short turnaround for his deliverable and you have billable hours that you'll have extra time that you can then use on another job.
That being said, if it's an especially small job, I'll sometimes take it on a per hour basis to keep things simple.
I agree with the fact that per hour model is not perfect but its really hard to predict the effort that will be involved in the project. I don't think even I can be sure of things I want before commencement of project.
Plus, you may have to deal with client asking trivial changes which I specially find hard to refuse. Is there a model where you can charge more if it exceeds your expected time of completion?
You make some good points. I think the best solution for your scenario would be to make sure you have a detailed Scope of Work going into the project. The SOW lists what exactly the job will entail. If the client's requests exceed the SOW, then you have the right to either refuse to do the item or to renegotiate.
I do a bit of both. I quote my hourly ($120), tell them how long it will take & the lump figure. I always get 25-50% payment up-front with the remainder due on completion. I never start work without the up-front payment - in my experience, this has been the most effective way of weeding out bad clients.
