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Visual Storyteller
Senior Art Director - Mid november to mid Feb
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I do this for brand-side clients on smaller projects that will not take up your full time & that are more flexible with schedule… (agencies will still act like they own your time with the amount of meetings and back and forth required, so day rate works better there)
I structure it as X number of rounds, and then anything over that is out of scope and billed at $X/hr.
The key is to keep the scope very defined and contained. On longer projects with a lot of moving parts things can come off the rails, so you need to feel confident in your estimates and will likely want to over estimate a bit to allow for the unexpected.
I recognize that this is splitting hairs, but per-project is still time based pricing. Value based pricing would have you earn a sort of residual, dependent on the effectiveness of your work.
Oops-- I forgot to answer your question:
A while back I went to a bid structure.
It's based on hours, but I honor the estimate, if I go over. I started this as an exercise in accurate estimating, and kept it for most of my clients.
It works best in scenarios where you get an added benefit in your favor.
For example, I keep a full time job, and have responsibilities at home, including my marriage and care of my children and mother in law.
So, if the model is Good--fast--cheap, I most likely won't deliver on fast. Cheap is a given in my market, and I'm not going to churn out garbage, with the limited time I have to take on projects.
But, I can cut a corner or two and eat an overage if I quoted wrong. This helps me deliver trust at an even higher level, and the longer turn times incentivize both me and the client to stay on top of scope creep, as it will require a new bid.
Yes I pretty much charge a project fee 99% of the time. It’s saved me a lot of times. Beware: the risk is on you. Why? Because you need to deliver at a specific time you agree on in advance.
Project based is hard because it’s a flat fee essentially and what if revisions are endless? That said, I like what freelance CD above said, “the key is to keep the scope very contained/very defined “. What I’ve seen a shop do is create a “menu” of multiple tiers. Services are defined clearly under each. How you handle if things go over if up to you, but incremental $ should kick in. Someone once explained it to me as a car wash menu: basic, premium, deluxe whatever. And each type of service will include certain delineated things. Anything else is extra.
I'm attempting to do the same. It's a better way in my opinion. We are capped hourly but as a project you can sound like an agency and charge more. Check out freelance cake for pricing thoughts.