I finished a job in 5 hours that I estimated to take 25 hrs. Should I bill the actual amount?

I'm an IT consultant, and happened to be well versed in the particular subject matter at hand and the project done well under schedule.

However, I have the distinct impression that if they see I got the job done in 5 hours they will suspect shoddy work. Do I explain the situation and bill for 5, or just bill for 20 and say i got it done a little faster or something?? The other thing is that most people really would take 25 hours to do this work, and I feel like my expertise isn't really being compensated at only 5 hrs billing.

I suppose the other option is to just bill for 5 and tell them in the future there will be a minimum charge or something? I would like the input of experienced independent contractors, because I don't want to be unscrupulous, yet i want to be fairly compensated

This comes down to ethics, man... plain and simple. If you are true to your ethics then you should only bill for the work you did. You can attribute the difference in time to several things... you know this stuff so put together a believable story.

Now, the next estimate you prepare should NOT include an hourly rate but a rate for the COMPLETED JOB; then you will have no ethical issues to deal with.

Then again, if you care little about ethics then charge the guy for 25 hours...

I guess "ethics" has no place in the decision making process. Glad I'm not the customer.

tell them and let them decide

If it normally takes 25 hours, I dont think it would be a bad thing to bill for 20. I would base it mostly on what you told them before you started. Doctors charge a lot because of their expertise.

I'd be upfront with them and tell them. That way, at the very least you will get the money they owe you. (The 5 hours of your time.)

I'd imagine they will give you something extra for being that upfront with them. It also shows how hard you work.

Beyond that, if ethics aren't that big of a deal to you, bill them for 10 hours. That is double your time, but still a deal to them.

bork1025 is right. Bill 'em for 5 hours, and ask for a list of other clients they might know who be interested in getting 25 hours of work for 5 hours of cost.

Then, move to a fixed-fee pricing model. Study ways to get out of the hours - for - dollars prison.

I'm glad you want to be fair #1 I've worked for myself a long time and there's a couple of ways to handle this not knowing if you bid this as a completed job price of 25hrs or doing it by the actually hrs .if a total cost ,of 25hrs you done it in 5 good for you if the job is completed faster, however if doing it by the actually hrs you have, then 5hrs is all you should charge this time and learn from this.(A min charge is the best way to go). if it took you 30hrs instead of 5hrs would you charge them an extra 5hrs? 15 hrs shouldn't break you, but being honest will bring you more work , Bottom line is you need a min charge if you work by the hr. You can charge them more time than it took ,but that is really not the fair thing to do and is stealing any way you look at it ,Like i said unless it was a quote for x- amount of hrs you may feel under payed this time but you know your agreement.I've worked a lot of jobs by the hr the reason i won't lose money that way and I'm not taking any risk of losing money for my labor. When you bid a job for a set price you stand to make more if you can complete it faster and lose if you take longer. Hope I've helped feel free to respond good luck, tom