Most app shops bill by the hour. I don't. When someone asks me to build them an app, I quote a single number, sign a one-page agreement, and that's the price. No timesheets. No "scope adjustments" three weeks in. No surprise invoices.

Clients ask me about this all the time, so here's the honest answer to why I do it — and why I think hourly billing is broken for almost everyone who's trying to ship an app.

Hourly billing punishes speed

If I'm fast, I get paid less. If I'm slow, I get paid more. That's the entire incentive structure of hourly work, and it's backwards. The whole reason I've gotten good at this is so I can finish faster — why would I want a pricing model that taxes me for it?

Worse, it puts the client on the wrong side of the same problem. Every minute I spend is a minute they're paying for, so suddenly they're hesitant to ask questions, hesitant to send feedback, hesitant to clarify what they really want. That's a terrible way to build software together.

Hourly billing makes both sides nervous about the wrong things.

Flat rates force me to be honest about scope

When the price is fixed, I have to actually understand what you're building before I quote it. That means a real conversation up front — what the app does, who it's for, what's in v1 vs. v1.1, what integrations matter, what platforms we're targeting.

This is the part most agencies skip. They give you a low hourly rate, a vague estimate, and a contract that lets them keep charging when reality diverges from the estimate. I'd rather do the hard scoping work first and stand behind the number.

You know what you're spending

Founders don't have unlimited budgets. Most of the people I work with are funding their first app out of pocket or out of a small seed round. They need to know what the app costs — not a range, not an estimate, the actual number — so they can plan the rest of their business around it.

A flat quote means you can budget for it the same way you'd budget for a piece of equipment or a year of office rent. That clarity is worth something. It's worth a lot, actually.

It changes what we talk about

When the meter isn't running, our conversations get better. You can call me without watching the clock. You can change your mind about a feature without it costing extra (within the agreed scope). We can argue about whether something is a good idea without it turning into a billing discussion.

That's the whole point. I want to be on your side of the table, not across from it.

The trade-offs — because there are some

Flat rates aren't magic. There are real trade-offs and I want to be honest about them:

  • Scope has to actually mean something. If "build me an app" can mean anything, I can't quote it. We define what's in and what's not, and changes outside that scope are a separate conversation.
  • I have to say no sometimes. Mid-build, if a "small request" is actually a redesign, I'll tell you. That can feel uncomfortable, but it's the price of the pricing.
  • I won't quote what I don't understand. If your idea is genuinely novel or technically uncertain, I'll usually start with a small paid consulting engagement to scope it properly before quoting a build. That's protection for both of us.

What this looks like in practice

My app build is a flat $8K to $20K depending on complexity, delivered in 30 days. App Optimize is a flat $6,500. Custom websites start at $500. Every quote includes the conversation up front, the build, the App Store / Play Store submission for apps, and a real launch.

No retainers, no recurring fees, no surprises. You pay the number, you get the thing.

It's a simpler way to do business. After fourteen years of enterprise IT — where everything is a change order and every meeting has a billing code — running things this way feels almost radical. It shouldn't. It should just be normal.