FEA report rates 2

[Maritime Engineer]

How much should I charge a client for finite element analysis of environmental loads on an offshore breakwater?

Whats the going rate? To do calculations plus produce a 60 page report.. I dont want to undercut the competition by offering to do work for less than market value.

 

[JedClampett]

Estimate how many hours it's (calculation and report) going to take you. Add in hours for a comment cycle. Multiply your hourly pay rate by 3.0 times those hours. Voila, you have a price.
Don't worry about what others charge. That's called negotiating with yourself. If you can do it cheaper, that's their problem. Believe me, your rates will soon converge to theirs.

 

[rb1957]

what's "market value" ?

do you have an idea what contractors are paid in your business ?

How specialised (or not) is this work ? How many years of proficiency do you have ? How long did it take you to become effective ??

Where are you in the world ??

You have some fixed costs (computers, s/ware license) and some variable costs (hours to do the FEA, hours to write up the report ... these could be priced differently)

One way is to say ... 60pg report ... say it takes 2 hours to write a page, and 2 hrs to edit and check ... 240 hrs of admin work
1 FEA ... say 1000 hrs of specialised engineering work
remember taxes and overheads

another way is to say $x million (where x can be < 1).

another may be to say "I don't want to go fixed price, as I'll be assuming all the risk, and charging a conservative amount. Let's agree 500hr engineering work for $X and then we'll have less risk to complete the job.". But people don't like that ... they'll want to know now what it'll cost them so pad the number of hours. You could say "I'll set $Y aside as a risk pool; if I don't need it, I'll return it." ... Now that's creative !!

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?