Originally posted by TheFaQQer
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Why are either surprising? Oracle used to charge me out at £1500 a day when I was there eight years ago. They charge someone straight out of university out at £695 on the last price list that I saw, so why is it surprising that a consultancy charges a lot more than a contractor 
Any big consultancy is going to make money on you.
However I have a strategy that ensures I end up mostly cost neutral. I bill every hour I work. I never give a minute of my time and I generally end up getting most of the money that the consultancy charges the end client. However I get the job done and the clients love me, so Im on my third large project for my current client co despite working out much more than the cost of my day rate. It's all about having the balls to tell your client to rethink their value proposition when they ask you to record extra time that they can bill to the customer without paying you. The worst I had was a few years back when the PM was adamant that I wasn't getting more that my day rate. The following month he got a timesheet that was full of flat 37 hour weeks. He came up and said but you worked much more than that and I said You dont pay me for it so I don't record it and that wasn't changing without the additional hours on top... I billed 32 days the following month (20 day month) and they had their full time sheet in return
His project went in on time and I worked for them for over a year on different stuff.
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