Fixed price vs hourly

What each model really means

• Fixed price, one agreed number for a defined scope. Whatever it actually takes you, the

client pays the same. The risk of overrun sits with you.

• Hourly (or day rate), you bill for time spent. However long it takes, the client pays for

it. The risk of overrun sits with them.

Everything else, which clients prefer, where the arguments come from, how you protect your margin, flows from that one difference about who owns the unknown.

Where fixed price wins

Clients love fixed price because it caps their risk: they know the number before they commit. For you, it rewards efficiency, get faster and better, and your effective rate rises. And it forces good discipline, because you can only offer a fixed price responsibly once the scope is genuinely clear.

That's the catch. A fixed price is only safe on a tight scope. Quote a fixed number on a vague brief and you've signed up to absorb every surprise. So fixed pricing depends entirely on a solid scope of work with clear in and out lists, plus a contingency for the unknowns that remain.

Where hourly wins

Hourly is the honest choice when the work is genuinely open-ended: an ongoing retainer, a discovery phase, a support arrangement, or a project where the requirements can't yet be pinned down. Billing for time is fair when nobody can reasonably predict the total.

Its weakness is the open meter. Clients dislike not knowing the final bill, it can feel like it rewards slowness, and it demands trust and transparent time tracking. Even then, most clients want a cap or estimate, "hourly, but no more than £X without agreement", which is really a fixed price wearing a hat.

The honest recommendation

For most website and web design projects, the best model is fixed price on a tight scope, with uncertainty handled deliberately rather than absorbed:

• Scope it first, properly, so the fixed number is defensible.
• Add contingency for the residual unknowns instead of pretending there are none.
• Sell the genuinely uncertain parts as optional extras or a

separate paid discovery, rather than baking their risk into a single fixed figure.

• Use hourly for open-ended work, support, retainers, exploratory phases, where a fixed number

would be a guess.

This gives the client the certainty they want and gives you a number you can stand behind. For how to reach that number, read how to price a website.

A hybrid that works

Plenty of good projects use both: a paid discovery phase billed hourly or as a small fixed fee to nail the requirements, followed by a fixed price for the build once the scope is clear. You de-risk the fixed number by getting paid to define it first. It's often the most honest structure of all, you're not guessing, and the client isn't signing a blank cheque.