Hourly vs fixed price: why we stopped billing by the hour

I never liked hourly billing. We did it because some clients insisted. We’re done with it now.

Why doesn’t hourly billing fit design?

This is creative work. You can plan it, but you can’t schedule when the answer shows up.

You think about the product when you’re nowhere near your Mac. On a walk, in the shower, half asleep. A lot of the real work happens in the back of your head, and none of those hours make it onto a timesheet.

Doesn’t AI make design cheaper by the hour?

Some clients assumed that with AI we’d be quicker, so hourly would get cheaper. Sometimes that’s true. Often it isn’t.

When you’re digging through a lot of flows and possibilities, AI lets you explore far more of them, far more deeply. That makes the work more valuable. It doesn’t make it shorter.

What’s wrong with timesheets?

The worst version is the report. Track every hour, then explain what you did in each one.

The moment you work like that, part of your head is always on the form. How long was that? What do I call it? Will this look justified? You end up defending the process instead of doing it.

Is fixed price better for the client?

Yes. Hourly is unpredictable. One month the invoice is small, the next it’s three times bigger. That’s no way to plan a runway.

With a fixed price you always know what you’ll pay. And you know what you’re getting: a team side by side with you, focused on the outcome, not on the clock.

So, fixed

A sprint is $10k for two weeks. A partnership is a flat monthly fee. No timesheets, no surprise invoices, no counting days. See pricing.

We get paid for getting it right, not for how long it took.