Does everyone charge hourly or flat rate per project?

Kind of both. Mostly hourly because my customers just need a technical resource and aren’t really doing big projects. Just lots of smaller automation stuff that we do as it comes up. But if there’s a big project they are planning, like an overhaul of some process or maybe a large integration, we will do it by project. But the project cost is just calculated by “this is how many hours I think it’ll take times my hourly rate”

I generally charge hourly and give an estimate up front of how many hours I think it'll take

The only two models I would consider: 1. Retainer for long term support 2. Day rate for fixed term projects/contracts Hourly is a pain because you need to track what you do to a granular level, which adds admin (paperwork) overhead. Hourly assumes the quicker you are, the lower value your work. Removing hourly also avoids this:

Haha, good point! How do you sell these to customers? My clients always seem to want hourly.

I feel like hourly is a US cultural thing.