Do you always charge for full day?

**northernladyuk** · 31 August 2017, 09:09

Originally posted by abtx View Post

Hi, I started contracting recently with two different start-ups, work for each about 1-2 days per week. One of them will book me in for couple of days, but sometimes - like this week - they won't have work ready, so I spent maybe 1-2 hours each of the two days. Do you usually charge per hour in that situation, half a day, or full day price?

To me it's only fair that if I'm booked in a commitment has been made, and I'm hanging for good part of the day meaning I cannot work on my personal project. I wonder what do you do in cases like this?

You really need to agree this up front with them, and work out to what extent you want to do this by gentlemen's agreement or instead contractually.. I've had an agreement before where I do 1 days per week for a client but spread over the week.

It doesn't make sense for you to have 1 say out and then bill for 0.2 of a day, so make a proposal to them as to how you will bill for work done to date and then agree how to do this going forward.

**woohoo** · 31 August 2017, 09:09

It depends. If it's a morning work then I will charge for a half-day - usually will agree this with the client.

But where I've been waiting around and not able to do anything else, which happened a couple of weeks ago (they only needed me when a 3rd party was ready). I charged my full day rate. In the end I did about 16 hours work over the course of 7 days. I charged my full rate for the 7 days.

**ladymuck** · 31 August 2017, 09:40

One of my gigs has a timesheet system that doesn't get the concept of anything less than a full day. I asked the admin how I input a half day worked and was ignored so, should the situation arise, I will just work it out with the person who signs off the timesheet.

For another gig, it's more of a gentleman's agreement. That's because I know them well and we trust each other. The work is remote so they don't truly know how much time I'm spending but I will save up the odd hour here and there and just charge a full (or half) day when it reaches what I think is worthy of either. I usually charge half day for up to 4 hours and full day for anything more.

**ChimpMaster** · 31 August 2017, 10:04

I barely do 1 - 2 hours work each day for my client. But I always charge a full day

**TheCyclingProgrammer** · 31 August 2017, 10:23

If I'm charging a daily rate then I invoice for the full day. If I wanted to only get paid for a few hours a day I'd charge an hourly rate (I don't).

If I paid a brickie a day rate to come and build a wall and he finished after a couple of hours on the last day he'd still want paying for the whole day as we agreed a day rate!

The only exception is where I'm unavailable for part of a day for my own reasons - illness, other appointments etc. in which case I'm happy to pro-rata my rate.

This is all a lot less of a hassle when you're billing on a weekly rate and focus more on delivering value each week instead of set hours. This isn't a license to doss around but it does take the emphasis off of working full 8 hour days (who actually manages a full productive 8 hour day of coding anyway?).

**WTFH** · 31 August 2017, 10:48

Do you always charge for full day?

Originally posted by ChimpMaster View Post

I barely do 1 - 2 hours work each day for my client.

I barely do one hour, then I put my clothes on before the first conf call, that's more professional.

**ChimpMaster** · 31 August 2017, 10:52

Originally posted by WTFH View Post

I barely do one hour, then I put my clothes on before the first conf call, that's more professional.

WTFH = Working Totally-starkers From Home.

**FrontEnder** · 31 August 2017, 11:47

I've currently got 2 clients, so once a week I charge them both for a full day.

**northernladuk** · 31 August 2017, 11:49

Originally posted by FrontEnder View Post

I've currently got 2 clients, so once a week I charge them both for a full day.

So you only bill 2 days a week?

Do you always charge for full day?