Most people's rates reflect the time they are actually "on site" with the client. The hourly rate, then reflects not only the time that is spent collecting the information, but then also entering the data and preparing the report.
Thus, someone charging $100/hour might spend 3 hours on site and charge $300 for the inventory, but in reality will likely spend 6-10 hours total on the client's project. A fairly useful guideline is that you'll spend 2-4 hours on data entry/report preparation for every hour you spend on-site. Thus, your "actual" cost per hour might really be $10-$30, but clients usually find it more palatable to only pay you for the time they are "seeing" you.
I've found, however, that clients REALLY like flat-fee pricing better, but it requires you to be pretty good at estimating the amount of time that you will spend on a project, and have good time management skills in not getting roped into doing significantly more than the initial project estimated. Usually, you are safe offering a flat-fee rate if you do an on-site estimate. I wouldn't offer a flat-fee rate just quoting a project over the phone, because you can't tell if the person has a room that's just packed with stuff (like an entertainment/media room, or a collection of some type) over the phone.
Flat-fee pricing is especially valuable if you can get to the point where you have "staff" helping with the data entry part of things -- a teenager, spouse, or partner -- because you can be out billing $100/hour and pay them $8-$10 for the data entry. (You have to have good systems in terms of the data collection, however, and do a good job proofreading.)
The goal for most individuals pursuing this as a part-time venture is to bill 6-12 hours of time per week ($600-$1200 for 12-48 hours of actual work) and for those pursuing it full-time to bill at least 20 hours of time per week ($2000 for 40-80 hours of work).
thnx for the reply but, If you charge $x/hour, is that rate for the number of hours spent on-site collecting data only or + cumulative time spent on a project including offsite work? For example, I see where some folks charge $99/hour; do they charge for the time spent data collecting and data entering/preparation time?...I hope that makes my question clearer...
I enter the data into the software later at my office. I found it to be too time consuming in the clients home when I used my laptop. It may add a little bit of time to the total job but I would rather get in and out of the clients home as quickly as possible.
for those of you that do data collection on-site and data entry/cd creation into your software off-site, how does your time compare. If you charge $x/hour, is that rate for the number of hours spent on-site collecting data only or cumulative time spent on a project? thnx! Hank
