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Should I charge the client when I get stuck on stupid mistakes

Freelancing Asked by Cayenne on September 29, 2021

I work for a client for a few hours a week as a freelance web developer. I’m a mid level developer, but sometimes I make easy stupid mistakes, like spending around 35mins wondering why the addon I created is not working and start debugging to find out I didn’t activate it in the first place.
should I charge on easy stupid mistakes like that?

3 Answers

Delays which are due to your business/working practices are typically not the clients responsibility.

Let's look at the situation with a similar scenario.....

You're working along on a client's project and mistakenly close a file without saving it. Silly error, but I'm sure it's happened to most. This error means you have to redo what you just did for the past hour. That's an additional hour of your time.

If something, in the middle of a client's project, incurs time not directly related to the completion of the project, then it should not be invoiced. If I made some silly oversight which adds significant time to working hours in order to correct, I wouldn't feel right invoicing the client for time spent correcting my oversight. I'd not invoice for time spent on my error.

Correct answer by Scott on September 29, 2021

We would not charge our client on stupid mistakes. We commonly subtract the estimated time from the final hours if hourly pay was required for their project. Of course, any developer will probably spend time figuring out things and testing things trying to get it to work properly. In this case we might take a few minutes off that make sense. It's all about reason.

If you were hiring someone to do something, and you found out they charged you $100 extra because they did not do what they should've known to do (press the apply button before running the new code) how would you feel? Would you happily pay them or feel this would have been all avoided if they simply pressed the apply button instead of trying to edit, and reedit the code for 30 minutes to an hour over the course of the project?.

Answered by Overwatch Media on September 29, 2021

I couldn't help but had to leave my own insights on this matter as I am seeing two of those previous answers are all implying a client shouldn't be charged for his employee's mistakes.

If this question is about the rights of getting paid when the delays have been made due to freelancer's inexperience, low-level skills, or working practices - as opposed to his/her hidden features like characteristics, inattentiveness, or negligence - the client still has to pay for it. Errors and mistakes happen everywhere, every time. There's nothing guilty about it.

The reason is clear: The client shouldn't have hired his employee in the first place if his/her skills didn't meet up his expectations. That's what employers do. And most importantly, he should be responsible for his choice of choosing whom he is working with, and what his employee's mindset looks like.

Refusing to pay for the mistakes can only happen when the client thinks he has hired a working robot, not a human. Otherwise, any hours spent on the work that is (even slightly) related to the client's project are subject to the regular payment, especially when you are working on an hourly basis.

As long as you have materials that support your claim you didn't idly spend time for those 35 mins, you have full rights to get paid.

Answered by filipvk on September 29, 2021

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