Work
2 min read
Pricing the Afternoon
I stopped selling hours. Now I sell afternoons, and clients understand them better than I expected.
From the series · Notes from a Small Studio
By Mara Ellison · Lisbon
An hour is a strange thing to sell, because nobody buys one on purpose. Clients buy an outcome; the hour is just the unit we invented to argue about it. Two years ago I stopped quoting hours and started quoting afternoons: four focused hours with one clear question to answer.[1]
Why an afternoon
An afternoon is long enough to get somewhere and short enough to stay honest. It maps to how design work actually feels: one real problem, some thinking, a sketch or two, and a written note at the end. Nobody asks what I did in minute forty-seven.
How it works
A client books a number of afternoons, not a number of hours.
Each afternoon ends with a short written summary and the next question.
If a question is answered early, the rest of the afternoon is mine.[2]
What changed
Invoices got simpler. Conversations got better. And I stopped feeling guilty for the forty minutes I spent staring out of the window, which, it turns out, is often where the useful part of the afternoon happened.[3]
Notes
I borrowed the idea, loosely, from photographers who sell half-day and full-day sessions.
This is the part clients like least at first and appreciate most later.
Part three, on saying no to good work, is coming later this year.
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