Currently billing a ‘professional day’ rate, i.e. 8hrs, with flex each way when needed, but come the new year it appears that I’ll be asked to cover testing issues that may come at evenings and/or weekends.

This coincides with when my contact renewal will start from, so I want the on call arrangements and rates covered in the new contract. Having never had to do on call as contractor before, I’m wondering if there’s a rule of thumb I should be working to.

Anyone do/done similar?

Loads of things to think about. How much is the service worth to them? How much is the time worth to you? How likely are you to be called out? Higher the probability the more you probably want to charge. Is there then a charge associated with an actual call out or do you want it to all be covered by the on call rate?

If you have family you might want to also consider the inconvenience of you being on call may cause them and price accordingly.

There’s also the relationship with the employer to consider. Charging them silly money for a service they don’t have much choice but to take may sour a good relationship and make them think twice at renewal time.

A combination of what are you worth vs keeping the client happy, and would it just be telephone, online or onsite?

If just occasional none-committal out-of-hours telephone support, then just charge time. Otherwise it depends.

It’s worth quite a lot to them, but the time is worth a lot to me (especially weekends)

I’m thinking flat fee for being on call, plus rate if the phone rings.

We used to charge customers (and pay staff) a flat rate per hour for being on call with a ‘best endeavours’ response time (ie. people on call could go to the shops etc but a day’s sailing was probably not on). Once called there was a minimum of 1 hours standard hourly rate and then whole hours after that.

We did struggle to find people to do it so I mostly ended up doing it myself – I was doing 40 hours on call a week at £8/hour and got called once in 18 months 🙂

If you think you’re more likely to get called I’d push the on call rate up and ask for double time when called.

Think about SLA too. How long do you have to respond. Can you answer a call but still be an hour or so away from a computer. If it’s test support and not live support then you might be able to negotiate a period of time to respond.

Also think about how you want to be reimbursed if you get called out at 8am on a Saturday morning and are then stuck sorting out some issue for the rest of the day. I would be hugely unpopular in my household if I were to do this without there being considerable financial reward to justify it.

It’s likely to be rota’d, something like every other weekend, couple of nights a week, over the phone but may need to have my laptop on me.

It’s worth quite a lot to them, but the time is worth a lot to me (especially weekends)

In that case.. 🙂

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-mOKMq19zU[/video]

So many things to work out and define there.

I’d agree though, flat fees for specific blocks of time to be “available” – ie. sober, near a computer and able to be awake, logged in and ready to go within 15 mins or so. Ability to veto or move particular ones if you have other plans.

Actual call-outs at minimum of double your usual hourly rate, with a minimum billed amount.

I personally can’t stand being on call so would quote something to really make it worth the disruption. The usual thing I’ve had in past jobs, of being a nominated contact for a week or more at a time completely screws up that time. Can’t go for a ride, can’t make any real plans, just stuck whiling away the hours at (or near) home in case the phone rings.

We get a retainer for being on standby, if we get called, it’s a minimum of 3 hours. Time and a half to midnight, double time after that.

We pay our support engineers a modest flat fee for ‘being on call’ and then over time rates if they are actually called out, but then they are only on call something like 1 WE in 3.

Onzadog – is that as a contractor? How much is the retainer if expressed in terms of your hourly rate?

Not as a contractor but I think out contractors are offered similar.

It’s about 2 hours for an evening or 4 hrs for a Saturday or Sunday as a retainer.