WHY WE DON'T QUOTE HOURLY (AND YOU SHOULDN'T PAY HOURLY)

The fastest way to spot an agency that's about to hurt you is this: they quote in hours.

On the surface, hourly looks fair. You pay for what you get. The developer doesn't inflate scope; you don't overpay. That framing falls apart the moment you actually run the math.

HOURLY BILLING ALIGNS THE WRONG INCENTIVES

If a developer makes $150 an hour, every hour they save you is $150 they lose. Every hour they over-engineer is $150 they gain. That's not a moral judgment about them — it's a structural problem with the contract.

We've seen $30k builds drag to $90k under hourly billing. Always for plausible reasons ("you wanted that change, right?"). Always with a final invoice you can't dispute because the hours are technically real.

FIXED PRICING TURNS THE DEVELOPER INTO YOUR ALLY

When the price is fixed, the developer has exactly two incentives: ship on time, and ship well enough that you don't come back asking for free rework. Every hour saved is a win for both parties.

That's why we quote fixed. We figure out scope on a free 30-minute call, write it down, attach a number, attach a timeline, and that's the deal. If we underestimated, that's our problem. If you change scope after we start, we tell you what the change costs before we do it, not after.

THE 4 QUESTIONS TO ASK ANY HOURLY QUOTE

• What's the upper bound?If they can't answer this, the answer is "there isn't one."
• Who decides what counts as billable? Meetings? Slack? Pre-implementation thinking? Each ambiguity is a future invoice line.
• What happens when we change direction?A good answer mentions a change-control process. A bad answer is "more hours, of course."
• Will you commit to a written cap? If yes, you basically have fixed pricing dressed up as hourly. If no, you have an open checkbook.

WHEN HOURLY ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE

Two cases. First, ongoing maintenance once a product is live and stable — "keep this running, fix things as they break." Second, true open-ended R&D where neither side can scope the work in advance. Anything else, fixed pricing is the saner default.

Our retainer plans are time-banked monthly hours for exactly the first case. Everything else is fixed.