Just started my own company and I’m trying not to work for free.
First, if I build a WordPress site that contains a blog - and some blog posts are made by the client. Say 5 months later I get an email saying how the Blog won’t let posts be made… so something happened, not sure what. Whatever it is it takes an hour & they can post again - my fault or not.
If it was my fault somehow - do I charge?
Sorry if that sounds redonkulous - but one of the most difficult aspects for me of getting by this are things that might of sort of been on me.
Also, one example I’ve recently had is where a client asked to have a Google Search box for their vBulletin forum. It took me about 3 hours in all (maybe more for research) and about an hour to apply - in the end it didn’t go over so well but it needs modification.
Do I charge for research or do I deal with that cost on my own and just charge for the application time? What if they don’t end up using it?
Thanks for the insight… again I know we couldn’t stay in business if we didn’t charge but at first the gray areas kind of confuse.
You will probably get all sorts of answer, but I think you need to be charging clients for time you spend working on a job. Of course, that only applies if the time you spent was reasonable, customary, and consistent with the level of professionalism that the client expects.
For example, say I ask my real estate attorney to look into some matters regarding building code in a historical area of Denver, CO (real example). He’s a RE attorney and I expect him to know his way around that topic, but I don’t expect him to have everything memorized. He charges me to do some research and find the right answer, then interpret and apply the information to my circumstance. Seems fair to me.
Using the same example, if the attorney had spent hours learning about how building codes work before he was ready to address my question, that could be inappropriate.
Back to your examples: If you built a wordpress site which later had some problem that you needed to fix, that seems reasonable to me. Unless you promised the client that your work would be 100% bug-free (in which case you should have charged more at the beginning) it seems reasonable for problems to happen. On the other hand, if the problem was caused not just by a mistake or oversight but by something negligent that you should have been expected to know about, it might be inappropriate to bill for it.
As for the Google search box, if you think that the 3 hours you spend researching it was reasonable and that the average professional who knows what they are doing would have spent about the same amount of time researching it, you should be ok. Then again, if you advertise yourself as an expert in those specific matters and the client hired you because you are supposed to know these things, probably not a good idea to bill for it.
As you build your clientèle this will only become more common, and it is good you are thinking about this. For this specific customer, if it is a simple fix, it probably makes sense to help them, but then let them know that you bill your normal hourly rate for continuing support. There are going to be things that are beyond your control that even a “100% bug free” script will not prevent, such as the host upgrading the php version, or a new exploit found for Wordpress. This is why we have always billed people for time versus a flat fee for a job, and then we stated plainly that we do charge for troubleshooting. That said, sometimes a small fix is worth providing for free so you can keep good relationships, especially when the customer treated you well.
If the work is shipped in a solid condition and an error occurs because of something the end user did (and it requires more than a 5 minute speed fix) then I would charge for the resolution on the basis that the fault lies in the end user breaking the product rather than it being a defect. If however a bug ocurred and it was something that was within a reasonable timeframe (like within the first year) and it was down to something you did (or didn’t do as the case may be), or if the issue is something that will take no time at all and is worth fixing to ensure keeping that customer for future gigs then I would say fix the issue. Selling faulty goods does happen on occasion and dealing with it effectively will reflect on our business in a positive light. You should however make sure you state all of the factors you intend to cater for an your bug resolution policy in your contract so they agree to the terms you set out for future issues as they may occur.
