Hourly seats or a flat monthly per seat, which one actually protects the buyer?

Question

Two proposals in front of me for the same scope, roughly 30 hours a week of admin and light lead follow-up.

One is hourly at a rate that only bills time logged, with screenshots and an activity report. The other is flat monthly for a dedicated seat, no timesheet, they just say the person is mine during my window.

The hourly one looks safer because I pay for what I use. But it also means I'm now managing a timeclock and arguing about whether 40 minutes of training counts. The flat one is a bigger check and I lose the audit trail, but the incentive shifts. If they're getting paid the same either way, nobody's padding hours, they just want me to renew.

I'm slow on decisions like this and I'd rather hear where each one bit somebody.

sonia_alvarez · Answer

Flat monthly, and I'd add the third option in your poll. The hours floor is what stops the agency from putting your "dedicated" person on two other accounts during your window. Without it, dedicated is a word in a sales email. I'd also get in writing what happens when they're out sick, because on hourly you just don't get billed and on flat you're paying for a chair nobody's in.

karen_whitfield · Answer

Hourly turned me into a supervisor of screenshots, which is not a job I wanted. I moved to flat and my attention went back to output. @anchor, the real question is whether you have a measurable weekly deliverable. If you do, flat is fine because you'll notice within two weeks when it stops arriving. If your scope is vague, hourly at least gives you something to look at.

Hourly seats or a flat monthly per seat, which one actually protects the buyer?

2 replies