Nice article.

The last time I did any fixed price work was for a woman who I named here on the UT years back. I wrote the spec, emailed it to her, got the go ahead, and did the work. Then when I invoiced her, she started with all the complaints about the work and told me about all the parts I had left out. Of course all the work I did was according to the spec she signed, and I followed it to the letter. I regularly sent her snapshots of prototypes and updates. It took me threatening to sue her to get the payment.

Since then I have only hourly work. I do the task, bill the client, and invoice them. It's easy to mitigate the impact of the loss should someone decide to stop paying me.

In this case, I'm going to send the client a contract with the requirement of a 50% retainer.I have heard that clients see a retainer as a lack of trust, so I'm sort of shy about asking for it. But I like getting paid more thank I like being nice.




>>I have been doing contract work for over 10 years on an hourly basis. The client's generally pay quickly and it's worked out well for all.
>>
>>Now I have a new client who wanted a fixed price bid. This is the first of at least 2 projects I'll be doing for them, probably more in the future. This first contract is rather small, and the next one is bigger.
>>
>>The question is; should I ask for a retainer? If so, how much? If not, how do I ensure that the client won't renege and leave me with nothing to show for it?
>
>This article is interesting reading on this topic: Good Contracts or Good Friends