What a fixed price actually buys you
Every project I take on has a price agreed before I start. Here is why, and what it means when the scope moves.
Most web work is quoted one of two ways. Either you get a day rate and an estimate, or you get a number. I give you a number.
The number comes after a free discovery call, not before. Anyone who quotes a website without asking what it has to do is guessing, and a guess has to be padded to be safe. That padding is the part you pay for.
Why not just bill hourly
An hourly rate moves all the risk onto you. If I misjudge how long something takes, that is your problem — you pay for the extra hours. You also can’t budget, because the total is unknown until the work stops.
A fixed price moves that risk to me. If a build takes longer than I thought, the number does not change. That is the deal, and it is the right way round: I am the one who should be able to estimate my own work.
The trade-off is real, though, and worth being upfront about. A fixed price only works if the scope is pinned down. That is what the discovery call and the written proposal are for.
What happens when the scope moves
It usually does, and that is fine. What I don’t do is quietly absorb it and resent it, or quietly bill for it and surprise you.
New work gets priced as an add-on, at the rates already published on the pricing page — an extra page, another revision round, a booking integration. You see the number before I start on it. If you’d rather not, it doesn’t happen, and the original scope ships as agreed.
Why the payment is split
Projects are billed by milestone. A deposit starts the first one, and each milestone is paid as it completes.
The point is that you always have something working in front of you before you pay for the next phase. You are never in the position of having paid most of the money for something you haven’t seen. Larger projects can be split further into instalments if the cash flow suits you better that way.
What it does not buy
A fixed price is not a fixed timeline in the sense that nothing can ever slip. If I’m waiting three weeks on copy or photography, the launch date moves — the price doesn’t, but the date does. The proposal says what I need from you and when, precisely so that this is visible rather than discovered at the end.
It also doesn’t buy unlimited revisions. Two rounds are included in a build; more are available and priced. Unlimited revisions sound generous and mostly mean projects that never finish.
None of this is complicated. It is just the version where you can see the whole thing before you commit to any of it.