Question
I've been consulting for most of my career and billing under the standard industry expectation of hourly based billing. Over the years, I've come to believe that there must be a better way to to exchange value between a client and service provider, that more closely aligns the value provided by the service provider to the value received by the client.
Do any of you have use approaches or have examples of billing models like this, that have worked well for both you and your clients?
P.S. - See "Breaking the Time Barrier", by Mike McDerment, for a few examples of what I'm after here.
Answer
One of the most common is to set a monthly fee (recurring payment), or a retainer agreement. The purpose of a retainer fee is to ensure payment for future services or work to be rendered. Absent an agreement to the contrary, a retainer fee is refundable if the work is not performed.
Hope this will help.
