I only ever agree to discounted rates under two conditions:
i) as part of payment terms (i.e if you pay early I’ll knock 3% off the invoice total); or
ii) in exchange for a contra deal of some description – cheaper rates on purchasing their products, or seats at sporting events etc etc negotiated as part payment of the invoice.

But the hourly rates are always, always fixed at our normal rates. Any client who doesn’t think your standard rates are reasonable is not a client you want to have. If you desperately need the work, discount the rates in advance – but I would never agree to a rate cut as part of negotiations.

Dave, I think you definitely did the right thing cutting them loose at the beginning, and I’d recommend anyone to do the same. Experience tells me that if a client feels like they may be painful at the start of the relationship, chances are they’re going to be painful by the bucket load once you get started working with them.

I have a client at the moment who is a life long friend of mine. He has changed the brief many times, which i billed for. But then the last change i did for nothing due to a few errors at our end. This was the biggest mistake i have ever made in my life and i am kicking and cursing myself hard for it. It has been a typical, “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”. Now i am finding it hard to state where the line is. Now his boss is calling me up spouting the same kind of rubbish. I wish i could cut the project but i am too far into it.

Choose you clients carefully, especially when you are starting out. I certainly will be from now on.

When someone uses this kind of talk, it’s best to let them know you don’t understand exactly what they want quite yet so you can get some specifics.

And yes, Client B do sound as though they would have been difficult to work with. Even if they had agreed to your rates the reluctance would persist through the whole relationship. I suspect if you had worked with them they would often be bringing up the high hourly rate to scheme free work and favours. Popping sounds like the words of someone who will never be satisfied with the design work.

Seems a little pointless to me unless there is a dedicated QA team that comes with the QA manager, otherwise you have a chief with potentially no indians. Without you having stipulated how dedicated the development resources are, what exactly would the client hope to acheive with a dedicated testing manager that say an account/project manager wouldn’t solve?

In terms of lessons learnt from Client B, is it possible that you might have picked the wrong contact in the organisation to deal with from the start? If they didn’t balk at the price up front, sounds like the contact might overstepped his authorisation boundaries unless that’s simply how they do business there.