international contracting

[buraks78]

hey all,

recently i was contacted by a project manager from england and was asked to participate in a web development project...

unfortunately, i have no idea about how the procedure starts. I mean lets say we have agreed on the price, but now what... how do i charge him... do i just send him the codes and the pages and wait for the money... that would be dumb, i guess... do i charge him based on the number of hours i spend or just ask for a price for the whole website... i really want this job but have no idea but lots of questions regarding how to start...

it would be great if smn could give me a detailed description of the procedure (if there is one). thx...

[axo]

hmmm... charging him per hour or per project is your decision... but tell your contract partner what the price will be in effect.

the thing i do with 'risky' contract partners:
i ask for half of the money beforehand and, to be fair, i do something first, e.g. the planning on how the program will work or a (small) part of the whole program. then i finish the job and ask for the rest of the money.

then, if it's really risky and you want to be secure, either try to make a 'require' function which includes some important function the program needs and is not on your contract partner's server - or you make a hidden self-destroy function to which only you know the password and which deletes everything on your contract partner's server ;)

[buraks78]

thanks, but one more question

what kind of pricing strategy would do you prefer? per hour, or per project... which one you think would be a more accurate representation of your efforts? and would that decision be different if you undertake a whole project rather than a small part? guess i asked a lot, huh :D

thx for the previous reply btw...

[Weedpacket]

Some projects I've worked on the payment has been in thirds: after the consultation (unbilled) and the quote is accepted, the first third is paid up front. Another third is paid midway through the project (for some value of "midway" usually decided as part of the contract and commonly involving client signoff on what has been designed - but not yet implemented), and then the final third on completion of the project.

[edit: As for a third of what, that's generally judged on # hours @ market rates.]