For the first couple of years, everything was billed hourly. It felt fair — you pay for exactly the time spent, nothing more. In practice, it created a strange incentive: efficient work looked expensive per deliverable, and every small client question turned into a tiny negotiation about whether it was billable.
Switching to fixed-price quotes changed the conversation entirely. Now the scope gets nailed down up front, which forces a better conversation before any work starts — what's actually included, what counts as a revision versus a new request, and when the project is considered done.
Clients tend to prefer it too: they know the number before they commit, and they're not tracking a running total in the back of their mind for six weeks.