Repeat projects-- Charging Full Price?

Question

This question is more on the ethics scale. I have two freelance php projects that are nearly identical to the point I can copy and paste and only change a few lines of code to be done with the 2nd job.

Do you find yourself charging full price for a repeat? Do you half the two projects? I can't see charging for 10 minutes of work to the 2nd client fair (or rational when they get the invoice for only 10 minutes of time) When I just charged for all the work from the first job?

What do you do? How do you normally handle? I mean is it what they don't know wont kill them? I mean the first go around took nearly 40 hours. I can't justify in my head charging full price for a job I just did. Or do you just chalk it up to the benefits of Freelancing?

Answer 1

I would charge full price (maybe give each client a bit of a break). Until you are selling shrink wrap software then you should charge full price to all clients.

Answer 2

I would say charge full price for both, and chalk it up to economies of scale.

Companies that sell their software to multiple clients don't discount later customers just because they've already recouped their development costs. Ignore the fact that you're freelance - treat yourself like a business, and think of what a business would do in your situation.

Answer 3

Charge full price :-). If you need ethics justification then mark them as research funds for your next project.

Answer 4

Do what you think is right. From a practical standpoint, though, it might be worth it to charge enough for both projects so that repeat business from both customers will be worth your time.

If you bill by the hour, then charging more per hour and then billing for a very short amount of time might be a reasonable way to go for handling the second customer - they win, and you win the next time they need more work done. You have to be careful about setting unreasonable expectations - if you charge them for one hour of work to do what they think is a very complex project, then they're in for a nasty surprise the next time around. The only way to mitigate that, in my opinion, is to be very upfront with them about what you're doing and about how you're going to deliver the work so quickly.

Being honest will help if you're trying to build a long lasting business relationship with your clients, which is something you should care about if you're in it for the long haul.

Answer 5

I would also say charge full price. It seems like if you cut one of the companies a serious discount, that's the price they'll expect in the future, which might end up screwing you down the line. It might be best to set the precedent to a reasonable price, and just deliver a quality product.

Answer 6

Here's my perspective on it. You are charging for results, not for effort. The client is paying for value received, not for your effort. The ROI for both clients does not depend on how many hours you spent. If you are delivering similar value, the price should be the same for both.

Answer 7

Can I ask what the contract says about the code? Who owns it? If the companies you're developing for own it (and personally, I wouldn't hire a freelancer unless he'd agreed that I owned the code he wrote for me), you may not legally be able to duplicate it just like that. I'm not sure how you'd get around this or whether it's even important, practically - perhaps the chances of either of them finding out are slim to none - but you might want to double-check this before deciding on a course of action.

Answer 8

Does the common part contain any original algorithms or innovation? Then how is your contract with the customer? Does it specify that they own the code? In that case copy pasting from the first customer to the second one would violate the first one's copyright, as they actually own the code you wrote.

If you discount the second client because code is already written, the isn't the first one entitled to ask for a share of that discount? If the second customer knows that is getting a discount because the code is already written for the first customer, shouldn't he question the ownership of the code he gets? Can the first customer sue the second customer for infringement?

I'd guess if you wrap the common part in a framework and you sell them a license to your framework, then there is nothing either one can say. By doing what you propose you open a big can of worms. You either sell a license to your code or your write them new code from ... ahem 'scratch'. The fact that you already know how to write that code is just something the second customer should be happy to get as an assurance that the code he gets is of high quality. IANAL.

Answer 9

I normally charge full price as well BUT there is one thing to consider when doing so. If you're working for hire and the client pays you for your work, legally your client owns the copyright for the code. This isn't always the case but for most project a significant amount of the code is not yours to give out and could be copyright infringement.

Answer 10

A lot of people have said that the value is the same, so the price is the same. True, but nobody said that had to be the full hours worked X hourly rate either. You could conceivably take that total, maybe bump it x1.333 or something, and split it between the 2 clients. Each one only pays 2/3rds of the actual effort price, and you don't feel like you are unfairly billing similar projects.

You can even skew the split to weight one client over the other on whatever criteria is relevant. Say one is a nonprofit, so you lower their share and increase the share of the for-profit to make up the whole. Or, maybe one is a Fortune 500 and the other is a startup, so you rate it on available budget somewhat.