How and How Much Should I Charge as a Consultant?

如果您询问任何顾问，自由职业者或其他“演出”工人，他们的工作中最困难的部分是什么，大多数人可能会说"pricing my services."

Determining the value of your services is often tied up in your own self-worth, making this conversation even trickier for most people. For example, if you’ve worked as an employee for the last 30 years and never made more than $50 an hour, it might seem inconceivable that your services are worth $100 an hour.

您可能会认为，收费过多会使您倒闭，甚至可以悬挂木瓦。但是，实际上可能有更多的危险too little. Let’s dive into the psychology of pricing — along with the different methods and factors to account for when calculating your own prices.

收费太少的危险

Ask any business person worth their salt and they will tell you,"The first sale is to yourself."不,你不需要购买自己的产品或服务ice, but you do have to buy intoyour ability to deliver it.

If you don't believe that you have the qualifications, skills, and talents to live up to the promises you're making, clients will smell your insecurity a mile away. Confidence is essential. It may take some time to build up that confidence, but be wary of undervaluing your services as you build that belief in yourself.

为什么会这样？出色地：

• If you charge too little, potential clients won’t see you as a "bargain," they will see you as an "amateur."
• If you don’t value your services, your clients won’t either. They must have skin in the game to get the most out of what you offer them.
• 您将低估整个行业。是的，您的缺乏信心可能会使另一位顾问更加困难地过着公平的生活。
• If you offer to do a job for less than you’d like, you will end up resenting the client, the project, and yourself.

If you need to build your skill and confidence as a new consultant, consider offering a "Beta Program" for people you already know, making it perfectly clear that you are in the process of learning and you will be charging more once you’ve got a few clients under your belt.

If there is a cause you support, you could even consider donating your time to a nonprofit or charging a nominal fee in order to build up your portfolio.

How Much Is My Service Worth?

Let’s say that you’ve worked through all the mental junk and are confident in your ability to deliver results. You're good at what you do and know that you bring value to your clients. The question becomes,"How do I figure out what my service is worth?"

If only it were that easy.

People have been led to believe that goods and services have an inherent value — but they don't. Pricing comes down to two parties agreeing to a specific number.

That number can be as high or as low as those parties accept. If you're a business consultant who wants to make $10,000 a day and you find a client who is willing to pay $10,000 a day, you’ve just determined the "value" of your service.

实际上，关于定价的更重要的问题是，“人们愿意为我付出多少时间？”和，“我愿意接受多少时间？”

这可能是确保满足您的需求而不将自己定价的销售价格之间的微妙平衡。您可能需要每小时100美元，但您的潜在客户只愿意支付10美元。您是否低估了自己的工作来找工作或走开，找到一个愿意分享100美元以查看他们期望的结果的人？

还有一个要考虑的因素使它变得更容易。它被称为“市场税率”，是指普通客户或客户将为您的服务支付的薪水范围。它没有决定你什么cancharge but provides guidelines as to what you’re most likely to get.

Keep in mind, if the average consulting fees are around $100 per hour, your experience and track record will need to be taken into account. If you are a brand new consultant, you may be charging closer to $50 or $75 per hour.

凭借20年的经验，您可能会收取每小时150美元甚至200美元的费用。要注意的另一件事要注意：虽然您可能是新的“顾问”，但如果您在这个特定行业中以员工的身份在这个特定行业度过了30年，那么您有很多经验。不要短时间自我。

让我们看一下您可以使用的不同方法来创建定价结构。

How to Set Consulting Fees Per Hour

Let’s begin with one of the simplest ways to charge — hourly. We spoke earlier about how it can be difficult to charge $100 if you’ve never made more than $50 per hour. Consider this, what else was included with your $50 an hour paycheck? You likely received:

• Sick days
• Vacation days
• 健康保险
• An office to work in and all the equipment you needed
• Leads on potential customers if you worked a sales position

您的雇主为所有这些付款。作为企业家和顾问，您将为自己的福利付费，购买自己的计算机和工作空间，没有人会付钱去度假。您还将至少花费一半的时间（一开始）跟踪新客户，而不是工作时间。

It makes sense that you should charge more, but why should your client be willing to pay more?

If they were to hire you or someone else to provide the service you are about to provide, they’d be paying for all of those things out of their own pocket (not to mention Unemployment Insurance). Paying you more to不当雇员actually saves them money in the long run.

With all of this in mind, how do you calculate a good rate for yourself?

Consider what you were making at your last job. If you know the hourly rate, you are ahead of the game. If you don’t, use this equation:

年工资除以50周（一年中的一周减去度假2的周数）除以40小时（一周中的平均小时数）。

例子：每年$ 100,000/ 50 = 2,000/ 40 =每小时$ 50

现在，您已经有了小时费率，将其加倍或三倍。那是您的咨询率。收取基于项目的费用是您可以利用的另一种咨询费用结构。

如何设定每个项目的咨询费

Charging per hour definitely has its benefits, but there is one definite downside to this fee structure — the better you get at your job, the less you make. As you become more efficient and faster at the work you do, you’ll actually be penalized for your expertise.

That's不是为什么您自己开展业务！

当您的项目彼此非常相似时，尤其如此。也许您为人们建立了企业，帮助他们创建企业的基础。

Maybe you create websites or develop marketing plans — no matter what you do, you’re bound to get better at it the more you do it. You could raise your hourly fee to compensate, but clients may have a hard time swallowing the higher hourly rate.

而不是可怕的你的客户或支付cut, you can charge by the project. You know approximately how much time it will take you and how much you should make. This can become your project rate and make quoting much easier. Here’s a formula to help you figure this out:

（估计工作时间 +意外的20％缓冲）x小时费率=项目成本

这使您可以使您的应得的东西做出应有的措施，并使您的客户知道不会被残酷的发票击中。

How to Charge Based on ROI

Rather than say“how to charge based on ROI,”we need to discuss“您是否应该根据投资回报率收取费用。”

For a new consultant, the idea of getting paid a percentage of what you bring in can sound wonderful. It also sounds like something that a business owner should jump at. After all, if you don’t do a good job, they don’t pay you very much. Sounds perfect, right?

Wrong. If a business knows that you are going to deliver results and they are going to increase their revenue by around $100k, would they rather give you a hefty percentage of that revenue or find someone who will deliver the same results for a (significantly lower) fixed rate?

Obviously, they’re going to look for the best value for them. If you find a business willing to agree to these terms, they either don’t have the money to pay you upfront or lack faith in their follow-through to implement the steps you advise them to take. Either way, they aren’t the type of client you want to work with.

如果您与客户有历史记录并完全信任他们，请知道如何跟踪ROI，知道他们将实施您的解决方案，并相信他们会及时向您付款，基于ROI的收费可能会带来丰厚的收益。

When to Charge an Initial Fee Plus Monthly Retainer

This strategy may prove to be the most successful and easiest to implement for consultants of every experience level. It includes a two-part fee structure. First, you charge an initial "setup fee" which covers the cost of beginning a consulting relationship. Then, you charge a monthly fee to cover ongoing consulting work.

这不仅使您的客户更容易处理咨询成本，而且还可以为您提供持续的收入来源 - 因此，您不会面对每个月，想知道您是否会付出所需的工作来支付账单。

How Much Should I Charge as a Consultant?

Now that you understand the different methods of setting your consulting rates, and have seen the average fees of several different industries, it’s time to figure out how and how much you will charge.

This will take some time and some tweaking before you find the sweet spot in pricing. You may find that your price is scaring off potential clients. This either means that you are charging too much or that you haven’t identified your ideal customer yet. It could also mean that you aren’t communicating your value properly.

You may find that you have more clients than you can handle. This might suggest that you have priced your services too low and need to increase them.

无论您发现自己的情况如何，您都有能力（和正确的）相应调整费用的能力。是时候创建业务了you想要，在良好生活的同时带来价值。