Hello, all. I have my first paid freelance programming gig making a, as far as I can tell, pretty simple game. I've done some research on the way people charge their clients, hourly, daily, weekly, flat sum, and I've decided to charge weekly. Of course I'll have to estimate some things, time and effort within the week, difficulty factor of the project and so forth. But I'm settling on weekly.

I originally wanted to charge a 20 dollar hourly rate as that seems to be around the norm for new to the field freelancers. But I'm going to charge a weekly rate that'll be slightly cheaper than what my desired hourly rate would add up to. Possibly this method will leave the client feeling like they aren't paying so frequently thus feeling more willing to pay what I'd like to charge.

Also, I plan on charging the first week upfront so I don't do a week's worth of work for nothing if they decide to bail or what have you. It let's me know they're serious.

I'm also not going to give a price range but rather just a price. Given a range, they usually will pick the lowest rate. ha

Now, that all being said, do we think I am on the right mindset here? And I'm assuming I charge for the job while keeping within a self standard range? Example: The job is massive, charge said amount. Or the job is small, charge less.

Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciative.

Thank you.
Andrew

I've been giving this a bit more thought. I figure give pricing options. The hourly rate or the weekly rate. I also figure come to a mutual agreement on the actual payment. That way we both can be happy. Be flexible. But of course don't sell myself short.

Lastly, I'm wondering if I offer to monitor my hours with a program or do I leave that up to the client?

Andrew

frob can you elaborate a bit more on what pay-per-deliverable is exactly?

I originally wanted to charge a 20 dollar hourly rate as that seems to be around the norm for new to the field freelancers. But I'm going to charge a weekly rate that'll be slightly cheaper than what my desired hourly rate would add up to. Possibly this method will leave the client feeling like they aren't paying so frequently .....

The amount you charge won't alter how your clients feel about the frequency with which they pay you. The two aren't the same thing.

You can charge by the hour or by the week but if you bill monthly there is no difference to the client.