I prefer to quote per project rather than per hour for my web scraping work because it:

  • gives me incentive to increase my efficiency (by improving my infrastructure)
  • gives the client security about the total cost
  • avoids distrust about the number of hours actually worked
  • makes me look more competitive compared to the hourly rates available in Asia and Eastern Europe
  • is difficult to track time fairly when working on two or more projects simultaneously
  • is easy to estimate complexity based on past experience, atleast compared to building websites
  • involves less administration