Pricing Structures - Clients Before the Bottom Dollar?

I was chatting with an accountant friend the other week and she was telling me about her new pricing structure. Everything itemised. Email, that's a line item. Quick call to check something, another line item. Even the 'just a quick question' messages get logged and billed.

Her reasoning made sense on the surface. Your time is worth something, so why should any of it be free? And I get it - some clients will happily eat up an hour of your time over five short emails if there's no cost attached and that adds up over a year.

But it doesn't really sit right with me (although I know it should). Part of why clients come to me is that they can just ask. A two-line email about something that's bothering them, a quick call to talk something through, that kind of access matters to people, especially when they're anxious about money.

If I start pricing every interaction, I'll end up training clients to only get in touch for the 'big' stuff and the small stuff is often where the real value is, catching something early, reassuring someone, keeping a relationship warm.

So I've made my decision. Clients come before the bottom dollar, every time. I'd rather have a fair fee and an open door than a perfectly itemised invoice and a client who's afraid to email me.

It comes down to the same phrase that I always use about client interactions, mutual respect. Not just for each other as individuals but for each other's time.