Agent asking to know rate

[TheFaQQer]

As a contractor you should know your rate, otherwise you'll get ripped off.

As a contractor, you should know your worth. Sadly your worth and your rate may differ.

[Smartie]

Had an interesting conversation with a pimp today. He asked me for my rate and I said, 'what does the role pay, ie whats the budget'? He said, he would s imply take my rate, add a markup % and offer it to the client and let them decide. He then asked (in good humour of course) that when I go to buy a car and ask for the price or ask for a home architecture quote, do I get asked 'Whats you budget'?. I politely declined to continue the conversation but that was because I am mid contract so not under pressure.

Set me thinking. We offer consulting services. If you were to ask Accenture to do some work, they would quote their rate card. I dont think they would ask 'Whats your f*****g budget?'.

Do you get asked to quote your rate? How do you get around it?

Hold on while I go and get my glasses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility

[Lance]

Hold on while I go and get my glasses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_accessibility

Had an interesting conversation with a pimp today. He asked me for my rate and I said, 'what does the role pay, ie whats the budget'? He said, he would s imply take my rate, add a markup % and offer it to the client and let them decide. He then asked (in good humour of course) that when I go to buy a car and ask for the price or ask for a home architecture quote, do I get asked 'Whats you budget'?. I politely declined to continue the conversation but that was because I am mid contract so not under pressure.

Set me thinking. We offer consulting services. If you were to ask Accenture to do some work, they would quote their rate card. I dont think they would ask 'Whats your f*****g budget?'.

Do you get asked to quote your rate? How do you get around it?

Better?

[northernladuk]

Better?

Nope.

[FrontEnder]

Before I was a contractor I worked in the web dept for a company. Part of the reason I left was that more and more of the work was being dealt with by agencies and it became my job to manage them, which I didn't want to do...

Anyway. By far the best work I got out of them was when I said "we're doing this campaign and need this and have a budget of £xxx. Here's the brief, what can you do". Even better if you let them know that you've approached another agency for the work.

Not really applicable to us though, the dynamic is a bit different.

[mattfx]

When I get asked this question I aim for the rate I want and then add +50 to +75 depending on how interesting the role sounds. If it sounds like something I actually want to do then +50, ballache / tedious / in a tricky location +75.

As others have said, know what you're worth. It's ideal if you have some other chums in your area of expertise who are also contracting so you can gauge what other people with similar experience are earning, as opposed to what's being advertised on job boards.

[ladymuck]

It's the age old problem with having the agency in the middle. If you were able to get in front of the client first, you'd have a better chance of having a frank talk about their project, their timelines, the reasons the project exists, etc. You could then have a value based discussion that describes what you can bring to the project. You would then also have the opportunity to offer a fixed price rather than daily rate deal, if that's appropriate to the work.

Unfortunately, most clients still see contractors as pseudo employees and are fixated on an hourly/daily rate idea. Never mind that if they went to one of the big 4 and asked for a project team to upgrade from super widget 5.x to super widget 6.x they'd be quoted a fixed price.