Do freelancers bill for communication (email/phone/whatsapp) with a client once hired?
Hey everyone, I hope you are all well!
I just wanted to ask some advice from any freelancers... do you bill for time spent corresponding with a client about work? I mean once you've been hired and are doing the role. I've been doing an ongoing social media and content creation role for a retail brand, which is my first freelance role. Originally the contract was for 1 day/week, the time being spread across a 7 day week (as it's a social media role) and then this increased to 11 hours/week after the first month, but the contract was never updated. On sending my October invoice last week, my boss asked for a breakdown of how I'd spent my time, which I sent showing the breakdown of tasks and saying I'd added on a bit of extra time for correspondence (email, whatsapp message, calls etc), I'm talking around 1 hour across the whole month plus an hour call I had because she decided to change the content strategy.
The boss is saying: "billing for phone calls and emails has never been part of our agreement, quite simply because without that communication you wouldn't know what work is required. In my entire career I have never been billed for "communication time" as all freelancers know this is vital to them having any work and not a favour they are doing for free."
To me this seems absurd because why should I correspond about work on my own time, time that could otherwise be spent on other work/projects/leisure etc? I just wanted to get a feeling of what other freelancers on here thought.
Thank you and sorry for the essay! Izzie x
Replies7
- Hi Isabelle,I would say the best way to don't face this issue again is to charge project base and have a limit of time spent on each part of the project. As I do graphics in my case it's rather the round of amends / changes thta can be a tricky with some clients. To avoid any kind of miscommunication or arguement I clarify the round of amends calculated in the price. I would recommend the same things for you. To be very clear how much time is appropriate to spend on each part of the task.Generally I would say no you shouldn't charge extra for communication however there are cases when the client gets just too nasty and in that case it makes sense to charge extra. Hope it helps.Feel free to check out my work on https://www.instagram.com/annadoralascsik/
- @Gill Carruthers Thank you Gill :) It doesn't look like the role is going to be continuing due to lockdown anyway but I've certainly learned how to better approach this in the future, like billing on a project basis rather than day/hourly! Many thanks!
- @David Wilman Hi David, thank you for your insight! Exactly, I think you've worded it better than I did to her originally - the rate isn't just for the exact tasks (in this case shooting content, editing, posting etc) but also takes into account communicating, strategy, planning, my experience, flexibility in the role etc so when she asks for a breakdown it's like she's expecting just to pay hourly for those tangible tasks and not the whole picture!
- Ive never billed for comms / meetings specifically as its factored in when i set my rate along with all the other details that add up to be the costs of doing business (marketing spend, accountant, business premises overheads etc) . Once a job has started though the client is paying for my time & whatever I have been tasked to do with that time weather it be taking photos or emailing for signoff. Also never been asked for a breakdown either tho :)
- @Isabelle Hardy Hi Isabelle, that makes sense. If it's a new client, sometimes it's just about learning their expectations and what they want to see included in the breakdown. They maybe don't need to see communication included. It could be worth discussing with them whether it's best to change your invoicing so that you bill for the 11 hours per week rather than the 5.5 days.
- @Gill Carruthers Hi Gill, thank you for you response, I appreciate it. I see your point. I guess on this occasion, I normally bill for 5.5 days and in the breakdown it came maybe to 1 hour short of that so I explained that correspondences made up that time. So I'm not exactly billing for that time, just explaining that communicating about the work and flexibility required of the role is part of the fee and not everything can be broken down by hours?! If that makes sense...
- I have never billed for communicating with a client as it is part of building the relationship with them and would be part of your minimum service level. Your fee or hourly rate should factor this in accordingly. To be fair, I have rarely been asked for an itemised breakdown of how I've spent my time.
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