Consulting fees – charge lower fees for some things

Consulting fees take time to work up. Once you’re gone through the process of choosing a consulting fee model, you may have a client ask you if that’s your rate for everything. Should you have one consulting rate?

When I started out, I offered my time at different rates. For strategic marketing planning, I charged the highest rate. Basic copyediting went for about 2/3 of that rate. Substantive editing and freelance writing were a bit more. PR was a little higher than that…Pretty soon, I was having trouble keeping track of what should cost what. And I had clients trying to get me to charge my freelance writing rate for developing and planning strategic press releases. It was confusing for everyone.

So I moved to a flat rate AND I decided to charge by the project. I’m not the only one. Consultant Will Kenny charges a flat rate for everything, whether you want him to write a novel or sharpen pencils. Will says, "[C]lients learned to either go back to internal resources, or to hire other people, with different skills and different price structures, to handle those tasks."

As for me, I’ve found most clients are willing to pay my higher fee. And I sure feel less annoyed by requests to do "mundane" work.

Need advanced help in setting your consulting fees? Check out my Consulting Fee Guide.

1 thought on “Consulting fees – charge lower fees for some things”

  1. Excellent point Andrea. Another point here is if you work a 40 hour week for 52 weeks a year, there are a total of 2080 possible billing hours. At $100/hour you could net $208k/year max. At $200/hour = $416k/year max. You get the jist. Now, if you charge by the project you could net $1000 for 2 hours of work. Charging by the project allows consultants to maximize earning potential and also removes the conflict of interest from charging an hourly rate. Simply put, it’s better business. Another good resource is Alan Weiss at.

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