A few years ago, I had a freelance client who was one of the cheapest individuals I have ever met in my life despite the fact that he did well enough to afford a $1 million house in the city. Every time I updated his site, he wanted an estimate and he tried to haggle with me over my rates whenever I gave him an invoice. I have always charged hourly for freelance work and I’d told him what that would be from the beginning, so after awhile I said that I would have to charge him for the time to do estimates because it took away from the time I had to work on stuff for other clients. He always paid me in a reasonable amount of time, but getting him to accept the final charge on an invoice was like pulling teeth.

During one of the last conversations we had where he tried to get me to re-evaluate what I charged him, he asked me to justify why I charged so much. I first started by telling him that my rates are actually on the low side for the amount of experience I have because I didn’t like getting lawyers involved (which would raise my overhead). This answer not satisfying him, he replied by telling me that the building contractor who worked on his house only charged $10/hr and asked why my rates couldn’t be that reasonable. My reply:

“The computer I use to do my job cost a helluva lot more than his hammer.”

Surprisingly, he still wanted me to do work for him after that, but I’d had enough. A few weeks later, I gave him a final invoice and told him that I wouldn’t be able to do his site anymore because I’d gotten too busy. That wasn’t actually the case… working for him had just become more trouble than it was worth.