If I had to guess, he probably billed by the hour at a certain rate and estimated timeframe but got the work done orders of magnitude faster so his effective per hour rate is orders of magnitude higher.<p>E.g I tell you I am $50 an hour and the task will reasonably take 10 hours. However what you don&#x27;t know is that I am extremely skilled at the task and have done it many times before so I can get it done faster than anyone else. I have frameworks already set up, and a lot of boiler plate infra from previous projects. So I get it done in 1hr. I am now effectively making $500 an hour.