10 “Free Forever” Account Giveaways and Paydirt Product Review

Martha Retallick |
Reviews
| June 14th 2012

10 “Free Forever” Paydirt accounts giveaway finalized. This giveaway has closed. Congratulations to the winners: Langdon James, Maia Roberts, Jason Hackwith, Patrick Rogan, James Dudley, Elizabeth Bright, Mikey McCorry, Samantha Geitz, Pete Brady, and Henriette Weber. All winners have been contacted with winning details. We appreciate everyone’s participation.

If you have accounting software, it probably includes a time-tracking module. What if it’s on that desktop machine back at your studio, and you’re on the road with a laptop, or you prefer a dedicated time tracking interface?

Enter Paydirt, a web-based app that tracks three key freelancing metrics:

Your clients and their contact information
Projects you’re doing for clients
The time spent on those projects

Put these three things together, and you have an app that tracks time spent on client projects, and uses the time logs to generate invoices. You present a Paydirt invoice in person if you’re working on site like our hypothetical road warrior. Or you can send it via e-mail.

You can utilize Paydirt in one of two ways:

By logging into the Paydirt website which works just fine with your browser – as long as it’s not Internet Explorer. Paydirt doesn’t support IE – and that’s a feature.
By using the Paydirt extension for Firefox or Chrome. It will remind you to track time if it senses that you may be doing something relating to a client. Yes, sending that long, explanatory e-mail about how you’re tackling his design project is billable. So turn on that Paydirt tracker and make some money.

“I don’t bill by the hour. I charge by the project.”

In some freelancing circles, billing by the hour is considered to be the height of insanity. Why? Because there are so many hours in the day and week. You’ll soon hit a ceiling on your earnings.

Not to mention your ever-growing skills and abilities. As you become a more experienced freelancer, you’ll find that you’ll be able to do the same work faster.

So, imagine that you’re working by the hour, and the same job that used to take you five hours now takes you three. Congratulations, you’re now working for less money. Not a nice situation to be in, is it?

Yes, you could raise your hourly rate, but the higher you go, the more motivated clients are to price-shop. Even those who can afford you.

Now, let’s look at charging by the project. Wonderful way to go, and you may even find that clients are willing to pay more than they would if you were billing hourly.

But if you’re charging by the project and don’t know how long the work actually takes, your fee will be based on guesswork. What if you under-estimate? Not good. You could end up eating a lot of hours. Avoid this scenario by spending a mere $10 a month on a Paydirt account. It’s an investment in accurate billing.

“Where are the $#^& instructions?”

Without revealing my age (I get excited whenever I see a ’57 Chevy), let’s just say that I survived the dotcom era and its plethora of websites with inscrutable interfaces. So, let’s just say that I was a bit concerned when I hit the Paydirt site and didn’t see any instructions.

Then I realized that I had this review to write, so why not just dig in, start that time-tracking module, then send myself a bill? That’s exactly what I did. Talk about a no-brainer. This is one of those sites that doesn’t require instructions; it’s just intuitively easy to use. But if you do run across something truly baffling, there’s a “Need Help?” link at the bottom of every page.

Giveaway: The nice folks at Paydirt are giving away 10 “Free Forever” Paydirt accounts.

Entries closed on end of day June 21st, 2012 Eastern Standard Time. We contacted all winners on June 22nd. This contest has closed. Thank you everyone for their participation.

Terms and Conditions

This giveaway is not open to Envato or Paydirt employees.
Entries are accepted worldwide.
If you do not respond within 7 days to a notification that you have won a prize, we reserve the right to select another winner.