Thanks for the really detailed thoughts. I've been thinking about it and I think our difference in perspective is rooted in repeatability.
The vast majority of the kind of work I do is one-off prototypes that are very customized, and the rest is research and development where how to get to the answers is not at all clear.
For one-off prototypes, I think the most sensible thing is hours plus materials. You have a limited picture of how hard it will be, it turns things into molasses if the goals changing based on new information requires renegotiation, etc.
But after you've done it once, I think it makes sense to use a fixed price for replication, with variations in price based on small changes from a base design.
That makes sense to me. It has flexibility early on, like a stage A of the process, paid hourly. Then there's a stage B for replicating it once the product is stable, for which a fixed price is a better deal.
The vast majority of the kind of work I do is one-off prototypes that are very customized, and the rest is research and development where how to get to the answers is not at all clear.
For one-off prototypes, I think the most sensible thing is hours plus materials. You have a limited picture of how hard it will be, it turns things into molasses if the goals changing based on new information requires renegotiation, etc.
But after you've done it once, I think it makes sense to use a fixed price for replication, with variations in price based on small changes from a base design.
That makes sense to me. It has flexibility early on, like a stage A of the process, paid hourly. Then there's a stage B for replicating it once the product is stable, for which a fixed price is a better deal.