We keep billing as fair and as simple as possible. Here’s our billing policy, all cards face up on the table. The short answer is we bill you fairly for time actually spent and bill you at our cost for purchases. Here are the details:
- Rates: Our rates are intentionally well below average for what we do. Our goal is to build a long term relationship; the only way that will happen is if we leave you feeling fairly treated. That’s how we’ve lasted 30 years. But if you want to pay some guy $150.00 an hour to do the same stuff we do, we can refer you to a few.
- Premium Services: Simple – there aren’t any. We don’t “up-charge” for server work, emergency visits, onsite service calls, weekend work, or specialized services. We bill band-aids and brain surgery at the same rate. Ask around about billing rates before you contact us — you’ll find our rates to be very reasonable.
- Small Stuff: You don’t build a long term relationship by nickle-diming your own customers. Years ago, I was billed a tenth of an hour by a Northbrook attorney for a two sentence phone conversation, and I still resent it. We generally don’t bill the little stuff. Incidental phone calls, short remote sessions, and casual conversation are just not billable events for us. When a series of casual issues start adding up, we’ll bill you an hour, but we’ll tell you about it first. We’re a business, but we’re not in the short-term billing business.
- Markups on Purchases: We’re not in the hardware business and make every effort to find what you need at the best prices available. We bill you for time only and add no markup to purchases made on your behalf. We have no compensation agreements with any vendor.
- Initial Visits: We generally don’t charge for initial visits if we’re just getting acquainted. Understand that we’re not in the proposal writing business and do not welcome joining a parade of consultants marching through your conference room waving proposals at you. If our first visit is to disinfect your machine, or diagnose a failing hard drive, of course we’ll bill the time. But if it’s just exploratory conversation, we view our first visit as a chance to get to know you and your situation, and equally important, for you to get to know us. If it doesn’t feel like a good fit for us, we’ll tell you and help you find someone else better suited to your needs.
- Packaged Services: There aren’t any. We don’t try to induce you to pay in advance for a block of bundled hours by discounting inflated rates. It’s a fairly common approach among medium sized consulting firms, so you won’t have trouble finding a firm that offers this kind of package. Usually, however, all of the advantage – not to mention a chunk of your cash – goes to the consultant up front. We’re happy to provide as much or as little help as you think you need.
- Fixed Pricing: For app development or website projects, we bill time actually spent and will invoice on a fixed price basis only if you prefer it. While some folks like the predictability of fixed pricing, we recommend against it because in most cases, you pay more for support than you have to. Any fixed price quote you get from any vendor has to include a “fudge factor” to allow for unknown problems. But what if a job is easier than anticipated? What if it turns out that you can personally help speed up the process or offer your staff to assist? We view estimates for what they are: our best estimate based on a good faith assessment of a problem that hasn’t yet been fully analyzed. We’ll let you know as work progresses if anything new comes up that will impact our estimate.
- Travel: We aren’t exclusive to the Chicago area and have supported clients both coasts as well as international clients based in London. For local stuff, we generally don’t charge for travel within a reasonable distance from our offices, and when we do travel out of town, we invoice reasonable and customary out of pocket expenses or a reasonable per diem, whichever you prefer. The operative phrase is “reasonable and necessary”, so if you’re a looong way from Chicago’s north side, we’ll talk about it at our first meeting on an exception basis. Normally, though, it’s just not a topic of discussion for local clients.