>>>How do you handle the following situation, when a customer is asking for a specific feature. Note that I don't want to add this feature just for this customer; even though nobody else asked. And, who knows, nobody else may never use this feature. But I would prefer to make it a standard feature. To create this feature, it would take me about 3 days. I feel it may not be fair to charge them for all 3 days. But they should pay for some of this work (otherwise, I would never started it). What percentage or part of the development time would you charge your customer?
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>>If you have a support agreement with this customer, what does it say about enhancements?
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>>In the absence of any agreement, what you're really asking is what proportion of the compensation you require to make this enhancement should be tangible (i.e. cold, hard cash) vs. intangible (goodwill with this particular customer because they effectively got a discount, improvement to your app which makes it more attractive to new customers or for current customers to renew etc.). Your customers probably don't know how you weight intangibles, so for that only you can determine your comfort level.
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>>No-one has unlimited time. The time you spend on this enhancement could be used for other activities, whether revenue-producing or not. At one of the spectrum, if you're insanely busy with revenue-producing work then this enhancement would directly cut into that, so you'd probably charge them the full 3 days or something close. On the other hand, if you're retired you might be able and willing to give them a significant discount.
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>>The customer in question might look at a couple of things;
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>>- Does the new feature allow them to do something they previously could not, and if so what is the value of that?
>>- Does the new feature improve staff productivity i.e. it saves XX staff YY minutes per day @ $ZZK dollars per year?
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>>If the customer estimates an ROI such that they get a 1 to 2 year payback, they'll usually go for it.
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>Al,
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>Thank you for the detailed input. The customer does have an agreement that includes Standard Enhancements (that is, those that I - developer - decide to implement).
>Honestly I am not so busy that this would cut into the time spent on producing the revenue. I used to (years ago) would do these types of enhancements for free. But then I saw customers who would take advantage of these freebies leave me. So, I have decided that they should pay some portion. Especially this customer is a very large hospital (in Europe). And if this feature would be only applicable to them, I would charge them the entire amount of time/cost it takes to do it. Since I will make it a standard feature, I will probably just charge them 1/3 of the time it takes.
>Again, thank you.
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>UPDATE. In terms of ROI, it would be hard for them or me to estimate. Since what they are asking will save them time. But how often they will save time, nobody knows.

Dmitry,

I just got a quote from a Germany based developer, Euro60 per hour. You should charge the entire 3 days, full 8 hour days, to this client at this rate. At the very, very minimum. I would double or triple it again.

I think the mistake a lot of developers makes is quoting for and selling their time. You are not selling 3 days work. You are selling a lifetime of accumulating knowledge and expertise which in turn allows you to make something in 3 days. This is what I call the Picasso principle. Picasso, he scribbles a drawing out on a piece of paper in minutes and it sells for millions. You are not paying for those minutes it took him to move the pencil. You’re paying for his genius in expressing something in his art.