How I price projects as a solo shop (and why I don't bill them by the hour).

People ask what my hourly rate is.

For projects, I don't use one.

Every project gets a fixed price, in writing, before any work starts. I do have an hourly rate, and it's narrow on purpose: $125/hour for consultations, for out-of-scope work, and for time already spent if a project is canceled midway. Anything outside the agreed scope gets quoted in writing before I start it.

Here's how pricing works at a one-person shop, and why I think billing projects by the hour is the worst thing a solo studio can do to itself or its clients.

Hourly billing punishes everyone

Say I billed a whole website at $125 an hour. If I get faster at my job, you save money and I make less. That's a backwards incentive structure. The better I get at building websites (I've been at it since 2015, with a toolbox that now includes AI assistants and prebuilt components), the more each project should be worth, not less.

From your side it's worse. You don't know what the bill is going to be. You're afraid to ask questions because every email is "the meter running." You start second-guessing whether that revision is really worth $40. The whole relationship turns into accounting.

Fixed price fixes all of it. You know what the project costs on day one. I know what it pays. We both spend our energy on the actual work.

How I estimate a project before quoting

People assume I'm pulling numbers out of thin air. I'm not. There's a short, quiet estimate that happens before I send a proposal.

Here's what I'm doing:

• Counting pages and components. Four pages is different from seven. A pricing table is different from a hero photo. I tally the moving parts.
• Looking at your existing site (or lack of one). Migrating content from a 40-page WordPress site takes hours that a fresh build doesn't.
• Checking your assets. Do you have decent photos? A logo file that isn't a screenshot? Brand colors written down somewhere? If not, that's work I'll need to do or outsource.
• Asking what success looks like. "More leads" tells me you need a clear contact path. "More credibility" tells me we're investing in design and copy. Different costs.
• Padding for the unknown. Every project has at least one surprise. I budget for it instead of pretending it won't happen.

By the time you get a number, I've already done a small version of the project in my head. The quote isn't a guess. It's the conclusion of a short estimate.

Why fixed prices work better for solo shops

I'm one person. I can only be in one project at a time. If I take on yours, I'm not taking somebody else's that week.

That math forces honesty into the price. I can't pretend a project is small to win the bid and then quietly stretch it across three months. I'd just be working for less. So the number I quote on day one has to be the right number, or I'm the one who suffers.

Agencies can play the cheap-quote game because they have ten people to spread the loss across. I can't. Which means when I quote you $1,500 for a four-page website, that's what it costs to do that work properly. There's no padding for an account manager who'll send you status emails neither of us read.

The three things I won't budge on

People sometimes try to negotiate the quote. That's fine — I'd rather have the conversation than lose the project. But there are three things I won't move on:

1. The price doesn't drop because the scope didn't. If you want to spend less, we cut pages or features. We don't keep everything and shave the number. "Same work for less money" just means I'm doing your project on nights and weekends. Bad for both of us.

2. The deposit is non-negotiable. Half up front, half at launch. Not because I don't trust you. "I'll pay when it's done" can turn into "I'll ghost when it's done," and a one-person shop can't absorb that. A deposit means you're serious. It means I can plan my month around your project. (If you cancel before substantive work starts, the deposit comes back, minus any discovery time.)

3. Care plans aren't included in the build price. Some shops fold the first year of hosting and maintenance into the project to make the upfront number look bigger. I keep them separate. The website is one thing. The ongoing care plan is another thing, from $50/month, month to month, and you can take it or leave it. I'm not going to pad your invoice to lock you into a year of something you might not need.

What this means for how we'd work together

If you hire me, here's what the experience actually looks like.

You get a written proposal with a fixed number and a clear scope. You pay a deposit. We do the work, with two revision rounds included. We launch. You pay the rest. If you want a care plan after that, great. If not, also great.

You won't get a surprise hourly bill. If something comes up that's outside the scope, I quote it in writing before I do it. You will never see a line item that says "client communication: 2.5 hrs." You won't have to wonder whether the email you just sent me cost you forty bucks.

You'll get a website, a price, a date, and a person who picks up the phone.

That's what a solo shop is supposed to be.

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Curious what a fixed-price proposal would look like for your project? Book a free call, then you get a written, fixed-price quote. Or build a ballpark estimate first: it's a starting point, and I confirm the price in writing before any work starts.