What to charge for a 3 minute throwaway web edit?

November 30, 2007 12:12 PM

What do I charge for a 3 minute throwaway web edit, and how do I carefully extricate myself from any expectations that may have caused?

A few days ago a friend of mine called me, saying one of his clients is completely web illiterate and needed some kind of web design help. I told him I couldn't do much advanced work, but promised to contact the client to see what he needed.

A couple of emails later, I determined that all they needed was a name of an ex-employee taken off the contact and about pages. They just had no idea how to go about that. I said I'd take a look (I didn't know exactly what their setup was at that point.)

When I did a quick ftp, I saw the site was just six static asp pages and it took all of three minutes to make the change. I got a note back from the contact saying "Thank you very much for taking care of this matter so quickly. Please e-mail us an invoice so that we may pay you for your services. In the future we plan on doing more changes in this website & another site my boss has. Would you be interested in handling these changes for us?"

I am absolutely not interested in having to mess with an inherited web design (I'm such an amateur that I still do most of my web design in notepad!). While I wouldn't mind the occasional text tweak like the one I just did, I suspect that the requests would rapidly exceed my skill level and it's probably best not to get any more involved.

So...
- How much should I invoice for?
- What does an invoice like that look like anyway?
- Do I have him mail me a check or something?
- What's the best way of saying "You need to hire (and pay for) a real designer for what you have in mind."?

posted by Karmakaze to work & money (33 comments total)

You're not charging just for your time making the change but also 1) for the time you spent learning how to make the change and 2) for the market value of that expertise (i.e., the relative difficulty of finding someone who can do the work, which you may scoff at, but which is very real to your client).

Having said that, you should have an hourly rate that you charge, with some minimum. If it's $100/an hour, then the charge is $100 if your minimum is one hour.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:17 PM on November 30, 2007

I suggest that you decline payment and along with that, politely decline their offer of future employment.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:26 PM on November 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

This site has some links to standard web development invoice examples. You can use one as a template for your own invoice. Really it can be just :
Invoice #1
to Company A
From ME
For web services provided (x hours of work at hourly rate or flat fee you are charging)
Please submit payment via check..with your contact info.

I'd probably just flat fee 1 time for $40-100 and call it good.

As for telling them you aren't interested or recommending someone. I'd phrase it like:

My current workload would only allow me to do work limited to the changes I just invoiced for (that is if you are interested in doing more like this for them only - be sure to specify that you'd have to review the work first to accept and determine the estimated time and scope to accept future work) otherwise tell them that for other work or web development or site management you must decline and would recommend they contract another developer especially if they anticipate the work to increase and/or become more technical in nature.

You can always leave it open to possibility in case you have time to contract for them at a later date.
posted by clanger at 12:27 PM on November 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think you should charge an hour's labor at a decent rate, say $100 or so. (You could probably justify higher than that, but no need to take them to the cleaners completely.)

As the old story goes, smacking something with a hammer only costs $2, but knowing where to smack it is the other $98.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:27 PM on November 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Don't forget the time it takes to invoice, office supplies, mailing, etc. Not that you would specifically charge for those, it's all part of the minimum.
posted by artdrectr at 12:27 PM on November 30, 2007

With regards to bowing out of making future changes, simply tell them that you are not in a position right now to undertake those responsibilities, and thank them for the offer.

As for what to charge, that's for you to set as stupidsexyFlanders says above. Charging a fairly high rate will also ensure that they don't come back knocking on your door in future.

There should be a simple invoice template someplace on your word editor, or go online to find one. Once you invoice them, they'll mail you a cheque.
posted by LN at 12:28 PM on November 30, 2007

I used to work for a web design firm and we charged $150.00/hr. If something took 3 minutes, on average, we charged for 3 hours. Do they know how long it took you?

If not, then you should just send an email to your contact and tell them your rate and ask if that works. They might try to bargain you down, but that's ok...

Your invoice can be one page - brief description of what you did on top. Then underneath list what you did in point form with the price. (At least that is how we did it). Be sure to include things like USD before the dollar amount. You may have to deal directly with their accounting department. You should ask your contact what the protocol is. Regardless, show your invoice to your contact first.

About not being qualified to work on hard stuff - tell them that you don't usually work with their type of system (?) and you probably wouldn't be efficient at making large conceptual or graphical changes....
posted by smartless at 12:29 PM on November 30, 2007

would = wouldn't. sorry about that.
posted by artdrectr at 12:29 PM on November 30, 2007

Ask them to buy you lunch, where they will explain in detail what changes they would like, and you in turn can decide for certain whether the difficulty of changes is consistent with your level of competency.

This would also be a nice thing you could do for your friend.
posted by Kwantsar at 12:31 PM on November 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Charge them for 1 hours work, grab an invoice template off the web, fill it out, include a list of qualitifed individuals/firms that could make the changes in the future, thank them for the money, and let them know you're not interested in further work.

As an aside, you could easily charge $40-100 for the 3 minutes work.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:33 PM on November 30, 2007

I'm such an amateur that I still do most of my web design in notepad!

That's hardly amateur is it? Don't knock yourself. If you are using notepad you are already better than a whole bunch of people who make money without even looking at a line of markup.

I work in half hour increments, others charge by the hour. Invoice at a half hours work if you are uncomfortable with charging an hour for such a minor job.

The client is obviously pleased with your work. I doubt very much what they have in mind will exceed your skill level. If it does then get a few books, some coffee and meet the skillset required.

If you really aren't confident just say! Maybe you can recommend someone to them? Get them to post onto metafilter jobs. I'm sure someone here would be glad of the work.
posted by twistedonion at 12:35 PM on November 30, 2007

As a former freelancer, I would personally decline payment unless they really insist, and state firmly but politely that this was a one time favor and that I would not be available for future updates.

Then again, I'm kinda shocked that people are recommending you charge $100 for this kind of thing, so maybe I'm just out of my league.
posted by geeky at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

Yeah, real web peeps don't do WYSIWG. They use more upscale versions of notepad. If you can't do it in notepad you don't really understand what you're doing, so it's a great way to learn.

If you have no interest in continuing to work with 'em just charge 'em for an hour at like $60/hour and that will be that. Your skillset doesn't really justify $150/hour or something. Just because they don't realize that doesn't mean you should jack 'em up.
posted by Justinian at 12:39 PM on November 30, 2007

(on posting, I agree with geeky that declining payment is also a decent option.)
posted by Justinian at 12:40 PM on November 30, 2007

Kwantsar: "Ask them to buy you lunch, where they will explain in detail what changes they would like, and you in turn can decide for certain whether the difficulty of changes is consistent with your level of competency.

This would also be a nice thing you could do for your friend."

I totally agree. This is the best thing you can do.
posted by Effigy2000 at 12:40 PM on November 30, 2007

As a current freelancer, I agree with geeky. A three minute change isn't worth your time to invoice.

But, as others have seconded, go to lunch with them. Establishing good relationships is quite beneficial.

They may offer you work you can handle, or may recommend you to others. Either way, any good impression you make is in your best interest.
posted by Galen at 12:48 PM on November 30, 2007

Charge a one-time one-hour flat fee. You've still got the time involved in invoicing and following up on payment.

In the future, if you do work for a company, it's okay to tell them you have a minimum. I have a $600 minimum half-day charge, for example.
posted by acoutu at 1:10 PM on November 30, 2007

i am a freelance copyeditor, and i wouldn't charge for a 3-minute comparable task. i could take advantage of them and invoice for half an hour, sure, but i probably wouldn't.

as for future work, why not? tell them to feel free to get in touch next time they need something done. when and if that happens, evaluate what they want to do and if it's something you can do, why not do it? money's money. if it's not something you can handle, say, "thanks for thinking of me, but i have too much work on my plate right now. let me refer you to someone i know who can help you."
posted by thinkingwoman at 1:14 PM on November 30, 2007

Yeah. Don't charge them for a trivial fix. Sure, you could take advantage of their cluelessness to squeeze some cash out of them, but would you feel good about yourself if you did?

What's the best way of saying "You need to hire (and pay for) a real designer for what you have in mind."?

"You need to hire and pay for a real designer for what you have in mind."


(That said: if you do choose to get into it with them, an invoice can be as simple as a text file that says "Invoice for services rendered. Amount due: X. Payable to: Y, at Z address". Usually people list the number of hours worked on each task, with a brief description, but there's no set format; I use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of each day's work, which I just send to clients each month as a PDF. They'll send you a check. For small amounts you won't need to worry about taxes, I don't remember what the threshold is at which you have to file that income, fill out W-2 forms, etc.

Personally, I'd run screaming. In my experience, clueless clients are the worst possible to work for; since they don't know what they need or how things work, their expectations for what's possible will be way out of whack, and communication can be a challenge -- they'll expect the trivial to take hours, and the impossible to be easy. Bear in mind that if you do get involved with these people, you're going to spend a lot of time handholding and explaining. Treat that as billable time.)
posted by ook at 1:19 PM on November 30, 2007

Here's the thing. It took probably 20 minutes out of your life, total. You didn't talk about payment ahead of time, and I doubt these people are expecting a $100 min per hour. So I'd say just tell them it was no problem, you were happy to do it, but in the future they'll need to hire a full-time freelancer to do such a thing because you don't have time/experience/etc.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:27 PM on November 30, 2007

This is why I don't run my own business.. I couldn't sleep at night charging $100 for removing a name from a contact list. I'm not saying it's unfair or anything, just that I could never do it. And seconding that an invoice can be a simple notepad printout stating how much they owe you, it's just a paper record, it doesn't need to be anything fancy.
posted by imaswinger at 1:29 PM on November 30, 2007

I used to work for a web design firm and we charged $150.00/hr. If something took 3 minutes, on average, we charged for 3 hours. Do they know how long it took you?

dude. wow. that's some....not cool.

i mean, i round up by 15 minute increments, but i sure as shit don't charge 3 hours for what took me 10 minutes.

i also wouldn't charge for a 3 minute task. it's a freebie.

i'm done now.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:31 PM on November 30, 2007

You should not charge them for it.
posted by ludwig_van at 1:40 PM on November 30, 2007

Whether you decide to charge them for it or not, Blinksale is an awesome way to create a pretty good looking invoice in a few minutes. I suddenly had cause to create an invoice recently and had no idea what to do; within 15 minutes of finding that site, it was created and sent.
posted by schustafa at 1:57 PM on November 30, 2007

While I wouldn't mind the occasional text tweak like the one I just did, I suspect that the requests would rapidly exceed my skill level and it's probably best not to get any more involved.

So...
- How much should I invoice for?
- What does an invoice like that look like anyway?
- Do I have him mail me a check or something?
- What's the best way of saying "You need to hire (and pay for) a real designer for what you have in mind."?

Here's what I would do:
Send an e-mail, and follow up with a phone call, along these lines:

Thanks for having me do the text change for your website. I won't need to invoice you for this (or invoice a token amount: $25 - $50 say), but I would love to work with you on any future changes. I should be able to make changes to text pretty quickly. If you need changes to design elements or graphics, I would need more lead time."

Then, decide what to charge for the text changes. If design elements need to be changed, and it's above your skill level, then farm it out. Pay the farmee half of what you charge per hour. Everyone is happy, and it might give you incentive to learn to do more things yourself.

Goodluck.
posted by The Deej at 2:24 PM on November 30, 2007

Thanks to all of you. I've just decided to increase my minimum fees.
posted by JimN2TAW at 2:30 PM on November 30, 2007

JimN2TAW: for what it's worth, most of the dollar figures people are tossing around here are ridiculously inflated. $100/hr for development work is on the high side but not unheard of, but I'd consider anyone charging more than about $25/hr for simple text changes to be downright unethical.
posted by ook at 2:35 PM on November 30, 2007

Umpteenthing the "buy me lunch" option.
3 minutes work isn't worth charging real money for. I'd look at it as an investment in potential future work. That, and a free lunch.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:45 PM on November 30, 2007

Thanks to all of you. I've just decided to increase my minimum fees.

Yeah, no kidding. $150/hr, four hour minimum? Shit, I've got more than twenty years of creative experience and I can fake a tearsheet as well as the next BFA. WTF am I doing working for The Man making barely more than that in a given week? Who in the glorious fuck is paying $150/hr for webmonkeys and proofreaders (sorry, "consultants") and how can I get in contact with these people? I would kill babies if the end result would mean working four days a month. Seriously. Send me your cast-offs. Jesum Murphy.

Anyhow. 3 minutes work that your buddy sent you? You get your buddy to bill the client as part of the work he normally does for them (you're just subcontracting) and then hit your buddy up for lunch. And you ignore the client's e-mail. That kind of penny-ante work is not worth the time.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 2:52 PM on November 30, 2007

I used to work for a web design firm and we charged $150.00/hr. If something took 3 minutes, on average, we charged for 3 hours.

Note to self: Never, ever hire this guy.
posted by JaySunSee at 3:12 PM on November 30, 2007

You aren't including the time you spent emailing back and forth in your 3 minutes.
posted by smackfu at 3:21 PM on November 30, 2007

I'm a marketing consultant, but my web graphics friend charges $130/hr and also has a minimum. If you tell people in advance that you have a minimum, it keeps them from sending you bits of work. However, for existing clients, I'd bill it as part of ongoing work, assuming there was something for that month.

But, as smackfu noted, the OP has probably not accounted for the full amount of time spent.
posted by acoutu at 5:03 PM on November 30, 2007

Please send these nice people my contact information.
posted by low affect at 8:49 PM on November 30, 2007