Maybe this is the solution – quote a flat fee based on XX number of hours. I do that already for most clients, but with these question-mark clients, I feel I still need to protect myself from too much work and not enough payout.

Yet, as Eileen notes, when you quote a flat fee–based on your hourly rate, mind you–no one blinks.

My favorite tactic is to preemptively ask clients if they have a budget for the job.

If they name a ridiculously low price you can get going while the going's good.

Or you can adjust work–e.g.: edit existing material rather than draft from scratch.

Lori, á propos of the client who assured you "resources were readily available and the work was easy"–those terms are so subjective, aren't they?

One marketing director's "lotta background material" might morph into 10 hours of on-site taped interviews on your part.

It's hard to anticipate every turn that lies ahead, but I ask an annoying number of questions before I price.

I do these kinds of projects often, and have never had to quote an hourly rate. I base it on the expected word count, number of pages, etc. Then I factor in the type of research involved — will I have to test their products? Interview their staff? etc. If so, I find out how many people I'll have to talk to up front, and then estimating time involved in research isn't too bad. There will always be some projects that take longer than you expect. That said, there will also always be projects you finish faster than expected (meaning you earn a better rate). The trick there is balancing it all out.

I know that sometimes we go in flying blind. That's when I'm most nervous. Those have been the times I've been burned, too. Like creating new content on large projects. It's tough to give an estimate. A recent project I discussed with a client came with a lot of caveats about my estimates being based on a hypothetical scenario. I gave him an hourly price based on that. I had to. Sometimes hourly is your only safeguard.

I usually do what Devon said – quoting a flat fee based on a hourly rate. I do that in my flat-fee situations, but has anyone come across a project whose scope is so hard to judge that it's just not possible to guess-timate?

The reason I bring all this up is I have one project pending that's just too large to guess at. Instead, I told them I'd charge them X based on Y number of hours. When I do that, I get "reminded" of my rate by these same clients. But I know no other way to put parameters around these things so that the example in my original post doesn't become the norm.

Anyone?

If asked, I'll tell them I base my fee on an hourly, but I mostly just quote a flat fee.

For coaching I quote an hourly with a three hour minimum.

Needless to say, I didn't get any work from him. But why take a pay cut to do work that doesn't even interest you?

However, there are some projects that I can't give a per-project rate for, such as editing. If I tried a per-project rate there, I would end up screwing myself over. It's hard to do that when you don't know what you're getting yourself into.