rethink your priors
Should AI implementation work be billed by the hour?
The short answer
No. If AI makes you ten times faster and you still bill by the hour, you just gave yourself a ninety percent pay cut. Hourly billing rewards time spent. AI implementation is supposed to remove time spent. Those two ideas don't get along. Outcome pricing lines them up: agree on a measurable number, agree on where it stands today (the baseline), and agree on what you're paid when it moves. Cap the downside for the client so the risk feels fair, and set a floor so you never work for free. The hard part isn't the price. It's choosing a number both sides trust and measuring it honestly before anything changes. If you can't measure the baseline, you can't price the outcome, and you probably can't tell whether the project worked either.
Outcome first
- Price the outcome.
- Agree on the baseline first.
Want this applied to your actual workflow? That part isn't a cartoon. Work with Eduardo. Longer writing: The Compounding Founder.