I realise I'm asking how long is a piece of string, but how do you begin to calculate how much to charge yourself out at as a self employed consultant.
Obviously I want to earn more, rather than less, but not to price myself out the market in these strained times.
It's a specialised field with little qualified competition.
Ta 
D'oh! Sorry, wrong forum. 
Please move.
Phone other consultants in your field, and ask their rates.
That'll be £1.50, or 2 packs of Jaffa cakes, please.
all your bills
your pension
how much you want to save
how much you normally spend - food, going out, clothes etc
how much holiday you take ( you need to get paid when you are not at work)
insurance - prof' indemnity & public liability
any professional fee's you need / subs to a body?
the bike-to-work scheme (it would be silly not to ;))
add all of that up and then see if it is more than your competition - then charge accordingly.
the idea being that you should save a little by putting things through as expenses and other such things, paying yourself nat.min. wage + paying a dividends
jt
Work out what you want as your take home pay then work backwards from there with regards expenses, including things like no sick pay, no holidays, no bank holidays, periods where work will be slack, overtime.
Good advice people, thank you.
Was worried I would just "think fo a number". At least now I can think about the ways I can arrive at a figure.
you need to speak to someone else who does something similar and get an idea, if possible.
My day rate for consultancy stuff ranges from £300 to £700+, depending on the project/preparation/workload/and to some extent the clients pockets but a different area of work could be very different. The other issue is pitching a cost which will get the project. Sometimes it's highre than you think, sometimes lower, so experience is important, and you often find out what's actually possible when you don't really want the job and whack in a high price, but it gets accepted...
all your bills
your pension
how much you want to save
how much you normally spend - food, going out, clothes etc
how much holiday you take ( you need to get paid when you are not at work)
insurance - prof' indemnity & public liability
any professional fee's you need / subs to a body?
the bike-to-work scheme (it would be silly not to ;))
Add this all up, Divide by the number of hours, you work per week,
Then youll not get work for a few days or even weeks, so you have to multiply the lost hours and add them to your hourly rate.
Interesting reggie - can you tell me roughly what industry that is?
At present I am charged out at a LOT by my employer in the south-east, but if I do it on my own, in the north, I'd need to scale it back a bit.
It's a specialised area of marketing that I'm in.
You can only charge what the market is prepared to pay.
If you're the only person in the world who can do what you do then you can charge lots, if every man and his dog could do it then lots less.
If you're not making widgets then the cost of inputs is less of a factor, but you do have to pay your bills so if the market isn't willing to pay what it takes to keep your head above water then find something else to do.
As I keep saying to self employed people, being a great electrician/plumber/consultant/dog trainer/bog cleaner, etc isn't all that important, you've got to be good at the rest of it. If you don't know what the going rate is for what you're doing then you're in the wrong job.
This topic has been closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
