Freelancers, how many clients do you manage in parallel?

Question

Freelance

Good afternoon, colleagues. A couple of projects have suddenly ended, and I have to look for new clients. And then I asked myself the question: how many clients should I lead in parallel in order to have time to pay attention to everyone and provide high-quality services. I came to the conclusion that for me it is a maximum of 4-5 people in parallel.
And how many "parallel" clients do you have? And how many clients do you deal with on an average day?

Answer 1

I do development in Python/Django/Scrapy, sometimes front-end.
In general, I don’t have such a thing that I would make some kind of project and forget about it, usually this project can be done for months and often some improvements are required, but often breaks can be weeks or even a month.
For the last 5 months I usually work with 1-2 clients/projects at the same time.
Plus, there are others that I have worked with and they will most likely need some improvements in the next 1-3 months.
Now I try to do less simultaneous work and increase my rate so that there are fewer unnecessary problems.

Answer 2

It really depends on the area you work in. Well, what to invest in the concept in parallel.
If you are a designer/implementer/developer, I can't imagine how to simultaneously (!) provide services to more than one client.
If as a manager - from 2-3 to 5-7, depending on the depth of immersion in the issue.
I look at the situation both as a customer, since I am now, and as a performer, since I was before.
Both the customer and the performer are interested in closing any work as quickly as possible and getting the performer-money for it, the customer-result.
Accordingly, neither as a customer nor as a contractor are interested in the fact that the contractor would be engaged in simultaneous work in several areas. Moreover, not only speed, but also quality suffers from this.
The exception when you can have several customers is when the work is associated with a large number of small tasks. (system administration, operational management, some improvements etc). Then having several clients is certainly justified.

Answer 3

5-7 clients in parallel is already an incredible amount of money, more money is simply difficult to spend because there will be no time for it

Answer 4

5-7 limit usually. But I have an experienced team to help me, who will gladly come to the rescue. In this way, up to 10-12 clients are possible without loss of quality and efficiency in work.

Answer 5

Website developer. Front and back. Usually two at the same time. Because the customer wanted to change "this red button" along the design-layout-front-end-backend chain. During such breaks, while changes reach you along the chain, you can work on another project.
In addition, before the completion of one of the projects, I begin to look for new orders and negotiate.
It is risky, but otherwise you will not get stable income.

Answer 6

Until I have handed over one project to the customer for preliminary approval, I am not looking for another. While the site is being studied, minor bugs are being found, you can look for another one or already start working on another site. But working on 2 projects at the same time with full dedication is a very bad idea. Switching is difficult and unproductive, you spend some time getting used to this environment and task. If the deadlines are on the way, then you can forget about sleep, which also does not affect the quality and speed in the best way. 1 client with maximum return is done as quickly as possible, then only take on the next one. Otherwise, sooner or later you will not meet the deadlines, and this is very, very bad.

Answer 7

Now, parallel to the appearance of three, more - the quality or speed of solving problems will suffer. The peculiarity is that I have clients on constant support and about the same profile, many tasks are similar or overlap.

Answer 8

I develop mobile applications/games. There are two clients at the same time, but as soon as I finish with the second, I will not look again. The first one provides a lot of work. I will make my applications in my free time.

Answer 9

I do not understand how it is possible to conduct more than 1 client in parallel. Suppose there is a task - to develop a website, you say the term, you invest as much as possible and hand over the work as soon as possible, everything is fast and high-quality, and you start looking for the next order. And if I try to spray it, it turns out twice as slow (which is true for both projects that I lead), and the client is ultimately dissatisfied.

Answer 10

Usually 1, although I would like 2-3.

Answer 11

On average 2-3 clients.

Answer 12

We create simple sites, I am in the role of a manager / programmer. On average, 1-2 clients, the ceiling is 3, but this is rare. We are not looking for clients, they come on the recommendation and usually the site needs to be done quickly, so we cannot refuse, but the 4th project would hardly have been taken.

Answer 13

One client. I do not understand how you can develop several projects at the same time.