Why we price design in phases, not hours

For our first four years we billed by the hour, because that is what everyone did and because it felt fair. It was not fair. It was a system that quietly rewarded us for being slow and penalised us for having done the work before.

The problem with the hour

An experienced team solves a positioning problem in two days that a junior team takes three weeks to solve. Under hourly billing, the junior team earns more. The client with the better outcome pays less. Nobody designed this on purpose; it is just what happens when you price the input instead of the output.

It also made every conversation about scope into a conversation about money, which is a terrible way to run a project. Clients stopped asking questions because questions cost money.

What we do instead

We price in three phases with a fixed fee for each. Phase one is definition — interviews, audit, positioning, and a written brief we both sign. Phase two is design. Phase three is build and handover. Each phase has a fixed price, a fixed duration, and a defined deliverable.

Why the client prefers it

They know the number before they commit. They can stop after any phase without a penalty conversation. And they can ask as many questions as they like, because questions no longer appear on an invoice.

Why we prefer it

We are rewarded for getting better. When we cut two weeks off a phase through experience or better tooling, that gain is ours. It is the only incentive structure that makes investing in our own process rational.

The one place it breaks

Fixed phases require a real brief. If a client cannot describe the outcome they want, no amount of pricing structure will save the project. That is what phase one is for, and it is the phase we refuse to skip.