What do you include when you charge by the hour?

Hi Helen,

You might possibly be falling into the trap of being toooo honest there! Yes, of course it's reasonable to have breaks - sometimes I need to just because my brain is fried - but you might not always be able to convince your clients thay they should pay for that time.

I'd be inclined to be a bit less specific. Using copywriting as an example, basically, in most cases I agree a fixed amount of hours for a project up front, based on how long I know something will take vs what is reasonable to charge. This does sometimes mean you charge less time than it takes (because you maybe need to do some background research of your own) but conversely, if it's a subject you know really well, you might be able to do it very quickly, but can charge a bit more. The value of your work to the client is still the same, but in effect they are paying for all those years of experience that enabled you to do it in half the time that another copywriter would take! In this instance, where you have to indicate time for each element, the same argument applies.

If you are keeping a timesheet - maybe for a longer project or something where the full scope was not known on day one, then again it's a balance of the time you take vs what is reasonable to charge for the work completed in any given timeframe. But in general, I really don't think you need to show things like breaks on a time sheet. When I charge for a day I make it clear that this is seven hours of my time, but whether that's six hours plus an hour for lunch and breaks, or seven hours, or more - is really up to me. Some days I work faster than others!

Hope that helps.

Gill

Thanks for your feedback Gill; I always find your responses on the forum helpful.

No, I wasn't adding breaks (or other details) to the timesheet!

The client only needs to know the time it takes me to do particular tasks, but not all of them (so not minute by minute, if that makes sense).

Other editors are working on the same project and I was indeed wondering if I was being too honest (as you say!) in terms of assessing my time.

Thanks Helen, glad to help!

It's only when you start charging by the hour that you realise how hard it is to account for all your time. The thing I really notice when I have to work on client site on the odd occasion (which I hate doing so I avoid like the plague!) is just how little people achieve in a day . . . it's quite amazing!