What to do when time costs more than income?

Question

Freelance

I took up the development of the store, the cost is 25,000, I spent the time to finish the joomla virtuemart engine for all 40,000 if not more.
The problem is that I don’t do shops often, especially on this engine I took it for the first time.
So I asked myself, how do other freelancers get out of this situation? It’s dumb to ask for extra money, because. the deadline has already exceeded three times, although I work non-stop and before starting work we agreed on 25,000 with the condition that we make the design simple. (first offered 50,000 with normal design).
It was difficult to imagine the entire scope of work at the stage of setting the task.
What do you do in such cases?

Answer 1

we grit our teeth and do it :)
And next time we think before assigning an amount, and even better we work by the hour.

Answer 2

Apologize, refuse, return the money.
If the work done is really good, then finish it and sell it as a “build” or “your plugin” to recoup the costs, at least you will beat it off.
You have so missed the assessment of the work ALREADY that to continue it further is to make yourself worse.
The customer, again, after the deadlines missed by 3 times, will obviously expect more.
Having spent a lot of time, therefore, you will obviously no longer be satisfied with the project and the joy of completion will not be complete.
ps: No offense, but what could be done in the Zhumlov virtuamart to earn 40 thousand? For 40 thousand, you can write your store no worse than Virtuamart ...

Answer 3

1. I do not undertake to make sites on unknown engines. Those. many years ago I chose only 2 MODx and Drupal engines and do only on them (actually I practically don’t use MODx), if there is an order for another CMS, I don’t take the order and explain to the customer the difference in the CMS, but in no case do I pull the customer on Drupal.
2. While I was just getting used to it, there were such situations when I worked out 2 times more site, but that was normal, since I was just learning and was grateful to the customer for their patience. Here the question is a little different, you need to learn on simple sites , i.e. blogs, business cards, small directories.
3. The cost of sites is determined not by me, but by the market. Those. I roughly know that the store costs a minimum of $500, so I read the technical specifications and then vary the cost taking into account additional requirements from the customer, but it will be less than $500 only as a rare exception. The customer’s stories that it’s cheaper somewhere else don’t work for me, I don’t keep the customer, if it’s cheaper somewhere, then the market is open, let him go somewhere.
4. With the advent of experience, several sources of income appeared, so now I also take orders that cost more than I take from the customer - for the reason that I'm interested :) I know in advance that the order is in my minus, but I know that I will receive additional here knowledge, and this is a big plus in the treasury of experience.

Answer 4

Confess.
Explain to the customer that the task was initially underestimated. Therefore, it took more time. Tell us what is good. What opportunities and prospects opens up your work.
Then you can ask for money. You can do all this in one letter.
If the customer is loyal, he can raise it.

Answer 5

The right freelancer does not invest his money in someone else's project. We need investments - let's make an advance payment for the amount of investments, but I have no free money, sorry, no. And if you invest yourself, you always get some garbage.
A friend had a sad experience when everything was agreed and work began. He invested about half of the cost from his own pocket, but it so happened that he missed all conceivable and unimaginable terms (however, not only through his own fault, the customer was dragging rubber for more than a month with minor technical issues on his side). And then it turned out that the customer's database was too large for the selected tool (so big that the reaction time of the product was 5-10 minutes, instead of a couple of seconds), which, of course, was not discussed at the very beginning.
To finalize, it was necessary to invest a little more, but already beyond the strength of a comrade. When the customer was told about this, he said “thank you, but I’m not ready for such expenses, maybe when I save up I’ll return to this project, but for now I’ll manage” and didn’t pay a penny at all. Those. the guy just worked a little into the pipe for his money (:

Answer 6

This is your mistake, of course. I recommend the formula for determining the term, (for how much you think you will do * 2) + half of what is in brackets.
If the person is adequate, after the end of work, you can agree on an addition to the initial amount.
And so it makes no sense to make a store cheaper than 100t.r., there is always a lot of work there.

Answer 7

I always ask for more money, looking for a compromise between money and time spent. If I don’t find a compromise, then I just stop working, inform the customer about it, and give all the developments for free if he wants. All the same, the continuation of work is only work in the negative, this is more for the soul, and not for life.

Answer 8

A very good article on the topic: habrahabr.ru/post/167847/
Exact dates are possible only when everything is put on the assembly line. That is, when you do the same type of things day after day.
How it happens in practice is well described in the article.
It turns out that in most cases it is not possible to determine the exact time. If you call it with a margin, then in most cases (except for gold customers, of which there are 1 in a hundred), the customer will work with others who tell him the time he wants. All the art of management is to justify the increase in terms and budget to the customer with an optimistic voice.
So your task now is to “justify the increase in terms and budget to the customer with an optimistic voice.”
Welcome to real life!

Answer 9

Firstly, you yourself said that you did not work with this technology, so it is more difficult for you to estimate the labor costs, because any cms/framework, etc., let's call it a technology, has its own, sometimes very low-level nuances.
Therefore, in the future, try to multiply the approximately calculated time for new and little-known things by 2.5 somewhere, I don’t remember who I saw this advice from, but it applies not only to disassembly with the new cms.