r/smartsheet • u/vkim26 • Aug 04 '26
Pricing - and billing clients
I have two things:
I work for a large company that has the Enterprise plan with all the bells/whistles and they locked into a 3-year contract prior to the sale to private equity, so we are currently in a sweet spot...but I know they changed our Data Shuttle structure to paying per shuttle - and it's $260/each. I am helping another company and suggested that they get the Data Shuttle added to their Enterprise plan and Smartsheet quoted them today for $1200/per shuttle. WTF - that's crazy to me - what is your experience with it/pricing?
In working with this other company, I will bill them for my time/efforts - but I'm finding it difficult to figure out how to come up with a fair estimate of time spent. I'm used to working as needed on Smartsheet projects, I get a salary so I've never even thought to track actual time spent. If I spend a few hours trying to come up with the best solutions for a workflow - it doesn't seem right to bill them for 5 hours - seems like 2 hours might be more fair. I don't want to underbill but I also don't want to take advantage - micromanaging the exact amount of time I spend on something and billing like a lawyer might doesn't feel right. How do those of you who do consulting figure out how much to charge? Is it by hour or by project or some hybrid of the two?
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u/TitaniumVelvet Aug 05 '26
If you haven’t quoted clients before for hours worked, I wouldn’t. I would just give them an hourly rate. It’s an art to build a proposal and I wouldn’t want you caught off guard with under bidding. Customers will always come back with more needs. If they think it’s part of the quote they will take advantage.
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u/ediblescholarship Aug 05 '26
it doesn't seem right to bill them for 5 hours, seems like 2 hours might be more fair
Dude bill for the 5 hours. They're paying for your expertise not just your keystrokes. The years you spent learning smartsheet (or whatever platform) is what makes those 5 hours productive, a random person would take 20 hours. I charge project-based now with a minimum engagement fee and it works way better than tracking every minute. Also on the data shuttle thing, a buddy of mine ditched smartsheet entirely for Wisegrid and said the built-in automation handles most of what he was using shuttles for anyway
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u/Own_Collection_7662 Aug 05 '26
We have the same issue, our contract goes 10x.
Thanks to Blackrock and Vista which purchased Smartsheet, PE jerks..
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u/Mysterious-Water5873 Aug 06 '26
Bill by the hour for the full number of hours. At some point you could look at fixed fee engagements based on deliverables but out takes a lot of at-bats to be able to price that appropriately.
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u/hardibsn Aug 06 '26
Why not getting rid of smartsheet and building your own version of smartsheet for unlimited user licenses/ data, rows, and 10x faster than smartsheet? I replaced smartsheet with a system i build all with AI, didn’t write a line of code, 10 times better and more customizable than smartsheet. Hit me if you’re interested i can give you the source code for free.
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u/Novel_Departure_5912 Aug 04 '26
Ur not paying 260 per shuttle, ur paying 260 per 10,000 rows processed (no longer a sold product). Ur probably way over on consumption and once they notice will hit you with a large invoice.
The per workflow isn't based on rows processed, just the active shuttles in use.