Creating Your Rate Card

In this interview excerpt, freelance graphic designer Belen Bilgic-Schneider shares her perspective on rate structures.

Are you ready to set rates? 

Know Thy Self: Ideally, you've spent some time getting to know your costs, so you know how much revenue you need to generate in order to cover your business costs and leave you enough to cover your personal costs. 

Know Thy Market: In addition, rate setting is easier once you've done some research on the marketplace.  It's important to know what's happening with your clients (or target market), their industries, your competitors, and the broader economy. 

Know Thy Value: Lastly, since price is a reflection of your value in the marketplace, you should ideally have a clear sense of your value unique proposition. 

Equipped with insight into your own finances, the marketplace, and your value, you'll be able to make smarter pricing decisions.  Big consulting firms have teams of people figuring these things out, but you'll need to hack at it on your own.

Here we contrast hourly rates and day rates, the two most common rate structures for business consultants.

When pricing larger engagements, it's not unusual for consultants to extend hybrid or project rates that simplify pricing.

With larger engagements, you'll often be pricing your services based on deliverables, rather than purely on an hourly basis.

Here I share examples of how hourly rates are organized in my rate cards.

Here I share examples of deliverable rates from one of my rate cards.

In this interview excerpt, consultant Rich Waite shares his perspective on discounting rates.

Here I introduce you to a Rate Sheet (or Rate Card) template that you can use and walk you through its basic structure.

In this screencast, I demonstrate how to establish your Target Rate for any employees you have, or plan to have.

In this screencast, I demonstrate how to figure out your Target Rates for contractors.

Once you've established your target rate for a given role, consider the target rate for the junior and senior roles within that role family.  In this screencast, I demonstrate how.

Once you have target rates set, consider what your minimum rates are going to be.  As you engage in larger and larger deal, you'll find yourself discounting your rates more and more.  Establishing a floor helps you make sure you don't get carried away with your discounting.  In this screencast, I show you how.

If you work with contractors and vendor-partners, you can sometimes negotiate better rates when buying their services in bulk.  Here we explore how that can work as it relates to your minimum rates.

In this screencast, we come up with possible discounted rates.  Establishing them now will save you time later, when you are pricing projects.  It's also helpful to work them out while this topic is fresh in your mind.

In this screencast, we continue exploring discounted rates.

In this interview excerpt, David Manning, Managing Partner of PDG, a US consultancy, shares his thoughts on pricing.

Here I discuss what solution-based pricing is and what the basic elements of it are.

Here we look at a process for developing solution-based pricing.

Here we continue to look a process for creating solution-based pricing.

Here I share an example of solution-based pricing from one of my rate cards.

Here we look at another example of solution-based pricing.

Here I discuss the importance of validating your solution and solution-based pricing by sharing it with others and getting feedback.

Take what you've learned and apply it to your business, then go ahead and post your reflections here.

Let's revisit the Pricing Your Services journey and see what could potentially be next for you as you put your pricing system in place.

Here are coupon links to help you save on other Pricing Your Services courses.