This post was inspired by @CClements29 who posted a question on Twitter last week. I was on my way to Australia at the time, via London and Tokyo, so I couldn’t answer directly. But Charlotte’s tweet, plus various other recent queries, made me realise I should write about how I charge for work.

What I can’t tell you is how much you should charge for any work you’re being asked to do. However, I hope that by explaining how I work out my charges – a system developed over 17 years in business – I can at least give you some pointers on how to think about charging, and what kinds of questions to ask yourself and others.

First, I charge by the day (or, at the minimum, half a day). My rates depend on: the type of client and/or source of funding; the complexity, location, and interestingness of the work; and (to some extent) my capacity. For example, if I don’t have much on and I could do with the work, I’m more likely to accept less interesting work at a lower fee; conversely, if I’m maxed out, it doesn’t matter how interesting or well-paid a gig might be, I’m not going to say yes.

As a rule of thumb, I charge more for more complex work, work that involves more travelling, and boring work. If there’s something interesting I can do in my office, I’ll be happy to charge less. I often reduce my day rate somewhat for a longer piece of work, on the basis that if a client buys, say, 20 days of my time or more at one go, they deserve a discount. Sometimes the client sets the day rate: if that’s higher than I would set it myself, I won’t argue; if it’s lower, I probably will (unless there’s some other reason I want to do the work).

In terms of client type, I charge the least to small, local charities, or for any work funded by public donations. I charge the most to national governments, or for work funded by national governments, and to wealthy organisations such as universities. Larger charities and local governments get charged at an intermediate level.

In terms of what my day rate actually is: for UK work, it currently varies between £120 (small local charity, work funded from public donations) and £1,000 (rate set by a client for training when the course is full). I charge £800 for a day’s teaching in UK universities, which seems to be pretty much the going rate; £500-£600 to central government or for work funded by central government; £350-£450 to larger charities and funders; and £200-£250 to smaller charities and funders. This sounds like a lot to some people; the rationale is here.

The other part of the equation is working out what you can actually do in a day. This takes some experience, as everyone works at different rates, and the time things take can vary. For example, not all interviews will take the same length of time: an interview with five questions is likely to take less time, on average, than one with 15 questions. Sometimes, too, there’s a chunk of the work where you need to invest some time updating your knowledge and/or skills. I don’t think it’s fair to charge a client for the time you spend doing this, because the update will only help them for this particular job, while it will help you more widely. Occasionally the two will combine, e.g. when a client wants a literature review, as part of the work, about the exact topic on which you need to update your knowledge to do the whole job effectively. That kind of serendipity does happen, but it’s rare.

I can’t tell you what you can do in a day, but I can tell you it will help if you are able to work fast, as then your work will represent better value for money. I touch-type at 90 wpm, I read fast, and I make good use of time. All of this means I can offer my clients a lot of work in each day.

I charge for some expenses on top of my day rate: travel (second-class, taxis where necessary, mileage at Inland Revenue rates if I need to drive) and accommodation when required. I don’t generally charge subsistence to clients, but I do write it off against tax. I absorb all other expenses – stationery, printing etc – within my day rate.

Some clients want a ‘job rate’ so they can budget – or they tell you what their budget is, and ask you to work out how you can do the job within the available resources. Either way, you have  to decide whether and, if so, how you can meet their needs. Sometimes you simply can’t: I’ve lost count of the jobs I’ve turned down because the client wants, say, a three-year evaluation of a publicly funded project for a total budget of £5,000. It’s just not feasible to do a good piece of work, of that duration, for that price.

Charging for work abroad is different: info here.

People may, at times, ask you to work for nothing, or for ‘exposure’ or ‘the experience’ or ‘the contacts’. It is up to you whether or not you take up these opportunities. If you’re at the very start of your indie career, some may be worth the effort; I benefited from such things myself. I still work for nothing at times: I offer free support to groups of service users, community members, activists etc who want help and advice in relation to research. But I’m long past the point of working for ‘exposure’ or ‘experience’. I doubt any of my clients would ask a car mechanic, or a hairdresser, or a window cleaner to work in return for ‘exposure’, so why do they feel it’s OK to ask a researcher to do this? Beats me. And I already have 17 years of paid experience, so I hardly need more unpaid experience.

Whatever you decide, don’t sell yourself short. We all need to value our own knowledge, experience, and skills. This isn’t always easy: the day rates I now charge are this year’s rates, as my post about the rationale shows. I could only bring myself to charge these rates after, quite literally, years of people I respect (including several clients) telling me I wasn’t charging enough for the work I was doing. Yet I now realise that under-selling myself didn’t do me any good, and it doesn’t do the rest of us any good either, because it can lead clients to have unrealistic expectations. So do the necessary thinking and research, take a deep breath, and charge what your work is worth.