Why we don't do hourly rates

Hourly billing sounds fair in theory. You pay for the time actually spent, nothing more. In practice, it puts the wrong incentive in the room: the person doing the work benefits from it taking longer, and the person paying for it has no way to know whether three hours was reasonable or padded.

The invoice nobody understands

Most complaints we hear about previous IT providers aren't really about the work. They're about the invoice: a bill that shows up with a number on it and no real explanation of what it covers. When pricing is opaque, trust erodes even when the work itself was fine.

What fixed pricing actually requires

Quoting a fixed price means doing the scoping properly before any work starts, not after. It means being honest if something's more complicated than it looks, and saying so upfront rather than discovering it halfway through and quietly running the clock. It's more work for us at the quoting stage. That's the trade we'd rather make.

The trade-off, honestly

Fixed pricing isn't free. Occasionally a job runs more efficiently than quoted, and that efficiency is ours, not yours to claim back. We think that's a fair trade for you never having to wonder what an hour of our time actually cost, or whether the meter was running while we made a coffee.

Every quote we send says what it costs before we start. If the scope changes significantly, we requote it and say why. That's the whole system.