Consulting fees

How long do you give clients to pay? When I set up my consulting contracts, I specify that payment is due at key milestones. I take a certain amount upfront and, depending on the size of the contract, I invoice about every two weeks or at key delivery points. However, I don’t give clients 30 […]

A bad client can turn into a money maker. How’s that? Get rid of the bad client and implement a new policy. Early in my consulting career, a prospective client asked to hire me for 30 minutes, just to see what I could do. It was late on a Friday and I figured I could

What do you do about travel charges, when a plane is delayed? Ella posted a comment in my article about billing travel time charges. She wrote: I am a consultant for now (my client said that he will make me an employee after a trial period, but didn’t specify how long). I recently had to

When you walk into a meeting with a client, are you ready to talk numbers? Whether a client wants to know your hourly rate or your quote for an entire project, you need to have a handle on your numbers before you meet. That’s not to say that you need a firm estimate for a

This morning, I was astonished to discover that someone I know has been charging the same consulting fees for TEN years! Ten! And, not only that, this consultant only charges $50 an hour! Yikes! If this consultant had merely increased fees at the rate of inflation, they’d be charging $61 an hour now. I mean,

Freelance rate — if you’re wondering how to calculate a freelance rate, it’s much the same as calculating consulting fees. You’ll end up with a rate that’s approximately 2 or 3 times what you’d make per hour at a regular job, once you’ve accounted for benefits, vacation, sick leave and so on. See our consulting

When you’re setting your consulting fees, do you consider invoicing to be billable or non-billable time? Depending on how you set up your fees and contracts, you might designate time spent invoicing as administrative work — the cost of doing business. Or you might consider invoicing part of client and project management — and bill for

I just stumbled across this handy breakeven calculator (expired link) from Case Western Reserve University. It’s a handy way to analyze the price point at which your business will breakeven, given the costs of production and the volume of sales for your product. First-year economics students and MBAs spend hours pouring over breakeven charts, but

Via Dane Carlson, here’s this week’s Friday 5: the top 5 signs you’re charging too little. You may need to raise your consulting fees if this one rings true: "You never run out of work, yet you are subsisting on beans and ramen noodles." I’ve got a friend who made as much as I did

Setting your consulting fees is one thing, but do you ask clients to make a deposit when they hire you? Asking for a deposit poses several benefits. Benefits of a deposit May help provide legal proof that you’ve entered a contract — money or "consideration" has changed hands Reminds the client that they’ve entered a