[ushercakes]

This is my domain - I run a website for freelancers to share their hourly and project level earnings, kinda like a levels.fyi or a glassdoor but for freelancers.

In my experience collecting this kind of information, it is actually in the interest of freelancers to charge hourly. Far too often, with project level quotes, there is a scope increase, and in the end, the hourly rate is way less than your actual hourly rate. Not always, but very, very common. It only is in your favor if the project itself is actually very simple, you know it will for sure take you x amount of hours.

I wouldn't lie about how much time you spent doing something, either. But there is some nuance there. It's not like you can work for 2 hours and then bill for 8. But if you work for 10 minutes, you can bill for the hour. If you work for 2 hours 10 minutes, you can bill for 3. This is what I tell people working for me, but YMMV.