While I do a certain amount of consulting work onsite at my clients’ locations, it’s also very common for me to work remotely. In fact, I have a number of clients whom I’ve never actually met in person. Remote access technologies like RDP, GoToMeeting, TeamViewer, SSH, etc., combined with the ability to do a good amount of development work offline, means that I’m able to spend more billable time doing actual work and less time traveling to customer sites. It also means that I don’t have to charge a minimum amount: if a client only needs an hour’s worth of consulting, that’s what they get.