计费系统设计

If you are a web designer/developer who currently bills per hour, I hope I can persuade you to change your pricing method to value based pricing.

如果您是目前按小时计费的网页设计师/开发人员，希望我能说服您将定价方式更改为基于价值的定价。

In this article, I discuss both of these methods in detail and without the fluff so you can just get the nuggets and practical understanding to make an informed decision from there.

在本文中，我将详细讨论这两种方法，而且不会产生任何毛刺，因此您可以从中获得掘金和实践知识，从而从中做出明智的决定。

On a serious note, if you apply what you will read about today, you can really earn more, work less and be a more fulfilled freelancer - and I don't just say this half-heartedly.

认真地说，如果您应用今天将要读到的内容，您真的可以赚到更多，工作更少，成为一名更满意的自由职业者-我不只是三心二意。

Enough fluff, let’s get straight to it:

足够的绒毛，让我们直接看一下：

按小时计费 (Billing By The Hour)

I’ll start with this pricing method first because it’s the most popular.

我首先从这种定价方法开始，因为它是最受欢迎的定价方法。

I am well aware that there are many web designers/developers out there who make a very good living by using the hourly billing method, but in my opinion, value based billing is far better than hourly billing.

我很清楚，有很多Web设计师/开发人员使用小时计费方法过上了很好的生活，但我认为基于价值的计费比小时计费要好得多。

To explain why, these are some common truths about hourly billing:

为了解释为什么，这些是关于小时计费的一些常识：

• There are times when you argue over invoices and timesheets which wastes time for both parties (yes, there are software programs to track this, but even that can be disputed by a client).

  有时候，您会在发票和时间表上争论，这浪费了双方的时间(是的，有软件程序可以跟踪此情况，但即使这样，客户也可能会对此提出异议)。

• Feeling like you have to be “micro-managed” by the hour. Clients would often want an estimate of the total hours before the project starts. They would then make a decision to go ahead with the project based on the estimate and not the final cost.感觉自己必须按小时进行“微观管理”。 客户通常会希望对项目开始之前的总时数进行估算。 然后，他们将根据估算值而不是最终成本来决定继续进行该项目。
• There’s no incentive to stay up to date with the latest technologies, software or tools to make your job easier because if you do, you get paid less.没有动力去跟上最新的技术，软件或工具，以使您的工作更轻松，因为如果您这样做，您的薪水就会减少。
• The longer the project is, the better it is for you (more income) and the worse it is for the client (more expense).项目时间越长，对您越有利(增加收入)，对客户越不利(增加支出)。

每小时计费对您与客户的工作关系有害 (Billing Hourly is Harmful for Your Working Relationship with the Client)

To illustrate this point, let’s say you wanted to build an additional room on to your house.

为了说明这一点，假设您要在房屋上再建一个房间。

The builder tells you it will cost $75k based on his best estimates and you go ahead with the agreement.

建造者告诉您，根据他的最佳估算，这将花费$ 75k，然后您继续执行该协议。

The builder completes 80% of the project and then says it’s going to cost another $15k to finish the remainder.

建造者完成了项目的80％，然后说要花费$ 15,000来完成剩余的部分。

How would you feel? Would you work with them again? Would you refer them to friends?

你觉得如何？ 您会再次与他们合作吗？ 你会推荐他们给朋友吗？

Probably not. And it’s the same thing with web design/development projects.

可能不是。 网页设计/开发项目也是如此。

If the project is not planned correctly, things can really turn bad if you now realize you are losing money and then tell the client it’s going to cost 30% more because of “xyz”.

如果没有正确地计划项目，如果您现在意识到自己正在亏钱，然后告诉客户由于“ xyz”而要多花30％的钱，事情真的会变糟。

每小时计费不利于效率和创新 (Hourly Billing Discourages Efficiency and Innovation)

Let’s say that the same web design project comes to you and 9 other web designers. You each have different hourly rates that you decided would be fair for your expertise.

假设您和其他9位Web设计人员都遇到了相同的Web设计项目。 你们每个人都有不同的小时费率，您认为这对您的专业知识是公平的。

“John” charges $45 per hour and others charge $75 per hour and then there’s this one guy (who I’ll name Bob) who charges $150 per hour.

“约翰”每小时收费45美元，其他人每小时收费75美元，然后有一个人(我叫鲍勃)每小时收费150美元。

Bob, with his experience in finding better ways to complete projects, codes the website in 3 hours = total fee of $450.

鲍勃(Bob)以寻找更好的方式完成项目的经验，在3个小时内对网站进行编码=总费用为450美元。

John, with his lack of experience, knowledge and efficiency, codes the website in 16 hours = total fee of $720.

John缺乏经验，知识和效率，所以他在16小时内对网站进行编码=总费用为720美元。

Hourly billing encourages you to not work smart and to drag the hours so you get paid more.

每小时计费会鼓励您不要聪明地工作，而拖延时间，使您获得更高的报酬。

Look, some websites can be done in less than a day – even a few hours if you have all the info ready and you know exactly what needs to be done.

您看，如果您已准备好所有信息并且确切知道需要做什么，那么某些网站可以在不到一天的时间内完成-甚至几个小时。

If you are charging by the hour, why would you rush to get this website done as soon as possible when you could delay it by a few days and get paid more for it?

如果您按小时收费，为什么您会急于尽快完成此网站，而又可能将其延迟几天并获得更多报酬？

Maybe there’s a snippet of code you can buy for $100 that can save you 3 days of coding time, but you are hesitant to do this because that means you lose out on getting paid more and you have bills to pay.

也许有一小段代码，您可以花100美元购买，可以节省3天的编码时间，但是您犹豫不决，因为这意味着您会失去获得更多报酬的权利，并且要付账单。

In other words, the client is paying you for 3 days extra (which would be more than $1,000) because you don't want to use a $100 code snippet as this means you lose out on $1,000.

换句话说，客户向您支付了3天的额外费用(超过1,000美元)，因为您不想使用100美元的代码段，因为这意味着您损失了1,000美元。

Can you see why this is harmful to you and your client?

您能明白为什么这对您和您的客户有害吗？

Here’s another practical example:

这是另一个实际示例：

If you are working on 3 client projects (retainer or once-off) at the same time and it takes you up to 2 hours per week to track your hours, prepare invoices, process payments, organise the accounting/tax side, etc. that can take almost a full working day each week just to handle this boring administrative task.

如果您同时从事3个客户项目(固定项目或一次性项目)，那么每周最多需要2个小时来跟踪您的时间，准备发票，处理付款，组织会计/税务方面，等等。每周可能要花几乎一整天的工作时间来处理这项无聊的管理任务。

This is beyond crazy. You are not hired as an administrator or debtors clerk or whatever else – don’t fall into this pit.

这简直是​​疯了。 您不会被雇用为管理员或债务人文员，也不会被其他人雇用–不要陷入困境。

On top of that, you’ll deal with one or two clients who always question everything and this takes even more of your time. This leads to a lack of trust down the line and nobody wants to work like that.

最重要的是，您将与一两个经常询问所有问题的客户打交道，这将花费您更多的时间。 这导致缺乏信任，没人愿意那样做。

I know these are very simple examples, but it still holds true in more complex projects as well.

我知道这些都是非常简单的示例，但是在更复杂的项目中仍然适用。

Your clients need to know this. Use the same analogy above or something that makes sense to you, but this is very important in moving forward.

您的客户需要知道这一点。 使用与上面相同的类比或对您而言有意义的类比，但这对于继续前进非常重要。

您的收入有上限 (Your Income is Capped)

There are only so many hours you can work in a year. Let’s say you are earning $60k per year.

一年只有几个小时可以工作。 假设您每年的收入为6万美元。

If we work on roughly 250 working days, this is $240 per day and $30 per hour (8 working hours each day).

如果我们在大约250个工作日内工作，则这是每天240美元和每小时30美元(每天8个工作小时)。

Firstly, not many web developers/designers are booked every hour for the whole year, but let’s say this is the case. What if you wanted to earn $100k next year?

首先，在全年中，每小时没有多少Web开发人员/设计师被预订，但是可以说是这种情况。 如果您想明年赚10万美元怎么办？

That would mean you need to increase your hourly billing to $50.

那意味着您需要将每小时计费增加到$ 50。

Although it’s only $20 extra per hour, that’s $160 extra per day, $800 per week and over $3k per month extra for a client to consider. It can often be a deal breaker in keeping retainer clients or signing up new clients for weekly/monthly projects.

尽管每小时仅需多付20美元，但每天可以多付160美元，每周可以多付800美元，每月可以多付3000美元，供客户考虑。 保留保留客户或签约每周/每月项目的新客户通常可能会破坏交易。

Unless your existing clients really value your services, they will not understand why you now all of a sudden value your services at almost twice the price for the same amount of work.

除非您的现有客户真正重视您的服务，否则他们将无法理解为什么您现在突然以几乎相同工作量价格两倍的价格来评价您的服务。

It’s very likely that they will start looking for other freelancers with a lower hourly rate.

他们很有可能会开始寻找小时费率较低的其他自由职业者。

New clients or prospective clients may not sign up with your premium service as you are almost double the “going rate” for other freelancers with similar expertise.

新客户或潜在客户可能不会注册您的高级服务，因为您的“行事费”几乎是其他具有类似专业知识的自由职业者的两倍。

Bottom line: increasing your income is not easy. Although you want a higher income, the clients you work with really don’t care about your income desires and they don’t want a higher expense.

底线：增加收入并不容易。 尽管您希望获得更高的收入，但与您合作的客户实际上并不关心您的收入需求，他们也不希望获得更高的费用。

Bottom line of the bottom line: Guess who really makes the final decision at the end? (it’s not you)

底线的底线：猜猜到底谁真正做出最终决定？ (不是你)

The solution is not some fancy tool or time-tracking software.

解决方案不是一些精美的工具或时间跟踪软件。

Yes, these can help, but this is more like a temporary fix and it doesn’t deal with the main issues mentioned above.

是的，这些可以提供帮助，但这更像是一个临时修复程序，它不能解决上面提到的主要问题。

Remember: It’s in the client’s best interests that you don’t bill by the hour. You just need to educate them on this.

请记住：您不按小时计费，这符合客户的最大利益。 您只需要对此进行教育。

Value Based Pricing

基于价值的定价

To avoid any misconceptions about this pricing method, it’s not a fixed amount that is calculated by your cost + your desired profit.

为避免对这种定价方法有任何误解，它不是由您的费用+所需的利润计算得出的固定金额。

Here are some common truths about value based pricing:

以下是有关基于价值的定价的一些常识：

• You don’t sell hours (like everyone else does) – you sell results (or the potential results).您不卖小时(就像其他所有人一样)–您卖出结果(或潜在结果)。
• There’s an incentive to stay up to date with the latest technologies, software or tools to make your job easier and to become more efficient.鼓励您紧跟最新技术，软件或工具的最新动态，以使您的工作更轻松，更高效。
• It allows you to really create something amazing and not to worry about going over the client’s desired budget.它使您能够真正创造出惊人的效果，而不必担心超出客户所需的预算。
• There are no hidden financial surprises to clients. You take all the risk in delivering the project within the total cost you’ve informed the client about.对客户而言，没有任何隐藏的财务惊喜。 在您已告知客户的总成本内，您承担了交付项目的全部风险。
• You can work with less clients and provide a better service because you are often earning significantly more.您可以与较少的客户合作，并提供更好的服务，因为您的收入通常会大大增加。

You are essentially providing a fixed amount based on the projected return or outcome of the project.

您实质上是根据项目的预期收益或结果提供固定金额。

You must probably be thinking that this sounds all fancy, but how can it be applied?

您可能必须认为这听起来很花哨，但是如何应用呢？

Here’s a short summary:

这是一个简短的摘要：

Find out the potential value of the project to the client over a year. In other words, find out the potential increase in sales that the business could be making after you create the website.

找出该项目对客户一年的潜在价值。 换句话说，在创建网站之后，找出企业可能实现的销售增长。

Then base your price off of this potential return.

然后根据该潜在回报确定您的价格。

Example #1 – The Existing Business Website:

示例1 –现有的商业网站：

A business sells agricultural drones via their website. They ask you to create a website focused around getting more sales.

一家企业通过其网站出售农业无人机。 他们要求您创建一个专注于获得更多销售的网站。

After you ask the basic questions (refer to the Prospective Clients Checklist), your 2 main questions should be:

提出基本问题(请参阅准客户清单 )后，您的两个主要问题应为：

• 1. How many sales do you currently get each month?1.您目前每月可获得多少销售？
• 2. What is the average sales value of a drone?2.无人机的平均销售价值是多少？

They answer with:

他们回答：

• 10 sales per month每月10次销售
• $8,500 each每注$ 8,500

You then do simple math to figure out how much they make each month ($8,500 x 10 = $85,000).

然后，您可以做简单的数学运算来计算出他们每个月的收入($ 8,500 x 10 = $ 85,000)。

You look at their current site and see where they are losing sales and you work on a low estimate of what you expect sales could increase by after you make a conversion-centred website.

您查看了他们当前的网站，看到他们在哪里失去了销售，并且对以转换为中心的网站做出的预期销售增长的估计很低。

In this scenario, let’s say you are confident it would at least be 2 sales extra per month.

在这种情况下，假设您有信心每月至少可以增加2次销售。

This would mean the business would make an additional $16,000 per month and almost $200,000 after one year.

这意味着该公司每月可多赚16,000美元，一年后将近200,000美元。

After informing the client of this in the proposal and why you feel this is a low and realistic estimate, you then give your website cost based on the potential annual return.

在提案中告知客户此原因以及您认为这是一个低而现实的估算之后，您可以根据潜在的年度回报来给出网站成本。

For this example, your price could be $10,000 - $15,000.

在此示例中，您的价格可能在$ 10,000-$ 15,000之间。

Would you, ‘as the business owner’ be willing to pay around 5% of what you could potentially make after one year?

作为“企业主”，您愿意支付一年后可能赚到的5％的款项吗？

Of course.

当然。

Example #2 – The New Business Website:

示例2 –新业务网站：

A business sells agricultural drones and they want a new website.

一家企业销售农业无人机，他们想要一个新的网站。

They ask you to create a website focused around getting sales.

他们要求您创建一个专注于销售的网站。

After you ask the basics questions (refer to the Prospective Clients Checklist), your main question should be:

提出基本问题(请参阅准客户清单 )后，主要问题应为：

• What is the average sales value of a drone?无人机的平均销售价值是多少？

They answer with:

他们回答：

• $8,500 each每注$ 8,500

After doing further research about the market and their marketing plan, you are confident that you can create a conversion-centred website that can convert into at least 4 sales each month (or one sale per week).

在对市场及其营销计划进行了进一步研究之后，您有信心可以创建一个以转化为中心的网站，该网站每月至少可以转化为4次销售(或每周一次销售)。

This equals $34,000 per month and over $400,000 in a year.

这等于每月34,000美元，一年超过40万美元。

Your price could easily be $10,000 - $15,000 and it would make sense to the prospective client after you have explained the value of the potential return.

您的价格很容易在$ 10,000-$ 15,000之间，在您解释了潜在回报的价值之后，这对潜在客户来说很有意义。

Remember: your responsibility is to make the business see this as a necessary investment and not a cost. You need to explain why you are the right person for the project.

请记住：您的责任是使企业将其视为必要的投资而不是成本 。 您需要解释为什么您是该项目的合适人选。

By breaking it down like this and being practical about it, you instantly stand out from the crowd of other freelancers who say things like, “I estimate that this project will take about 120 hours X my hourly rate of $45 = $5.4k”.

通过像这样分解并付诸实践，您会立即在其他自由职业者中脱颖而出，他们说：“我估计这个项目将花费大约120个小时X我的时薪$ 45 = $ 5.4k”。

The bottom line is that it's a win for you and a win for the client.

最重要的是，这对您和客户都是双赢。

By thinking about OUTCOMES, it shows you understand the project as the business does. You are not thinking about HOURS like everyone else does.

通过思考成果 ，它可以说明您像企业一样了解项目。 您没有像其他任何人那样思考HOURS 。

Now of course this is a very simplified summary. You would have to deal with the objections clients or potential clients may have like:

当然，现在这是一个非常简化的摘要。 您将不得不应对客户的异议，或者潜在客户可能会遇到以下问题：

- 100% payment upfront

-预付100％付款

- Questions about pricing

-有关定价的问题

- Doubts of the client

-客户的疑问

As far as I know, this method works in any product or service industry – even lawyers and accountants. The issue is not whether it works, but rather who is actually doing it effectively.

据我所知，这种方法适用于任何产品或服务行业，甚至包括律师和会计师。 问题不在于它是否有效，而在于实际上谁在有效地执行它。

The truth is that this model is simple in theory, but in practice you might stuff up in a few areas.

事实是，该模型理论上很简单，但是在实践中您可能会在几个方面陷入困境。

That’s OK… don’t have a narrow mindset. You are running a marathon and not a sprint.

没关系…没有狭窄的心态。 您正在跑步，而不是短跑。

It takes a lot of trial and error and ultimately you will learn by experience about what, how and when to say the right things that will get you higher paying clients.

这需要大量的反复试验，最终您将通过经验学习如何正确地说出什么，如何以及何时说出正确的话，从而使您获得较高的收入客户。

Learn from your mistakes, see where you can improve and each year you will become better in how you handle objections, how you communicate and more.

从错误中吸取教训，了解可以改进的地方，并且每年您将在如何处理异议，如何沟通等方面变得更好。

I hope this has helped you to rethink this topic.

我希望这可以帮助您重新考虑这个话题。

If you’d like to learn more and improve your skillset and become a happier freelancer that earns more, make sure to check out my course.

如果您想学习更多并提高技能，并成为更赚钱的快乐自由职业者，请务必查看我的课程 。

Until next time,

直到下一次，

Kyle

凯尔

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/hourly-billing-value-pricing/

计费系统设计