Wiseel
Structural
- Jan 26, 2020
- 14
Hi all,
I'm currently planning my start-up as a sole proprietor structural design engineer. I have a query about quotes and rates and wonder if anyone could help with your own experiences and opinions?
So, I've calculated my start-up costs and regular outgoings, including paying myself a basic salary. I've calculated hourly rates for the services I will offer which I am happy with, and think are reasonable. I worked them out based mainly on a combination of hourly rates from other engineering contractors (albeit other disciplines so not directly comparable) and from fixed price quotes from other designers who would be future competitors (although not knowing how many hours they had considered in their quotes for various jobs).
My question is about quoting jobs and whether or not to disclose my rates, or to try and keep them under wraps. For example, for some clients which I will be doing design jobs, I would quote a fixed price for a design, which is fine, no disclosure of rates required. However, what I'm wondering is how to go about it for other clients for whom I will be doing more site-based work, such as site visits and inspections etc, as this could be ongoing work where it would be more difficult to allocate expected hours in advance of a project starting. So I see here the benefit/necessity of providing rates and charging against them on a monthly basis. Or maybe the way to do this would be to provide a quote based on expected hours on such a job, but then provide rates for extra work above and beyond that quoted?
Could anyone offer advice as to how they quote for ongoing and variable jobs and whether anyone has any issues with disclosing rates? Is it a problem? I suppose, the risk is that my rates end up in the hands of a competitor and they could possibly use them to guess my price and undercut me. But how else would you quote for ongoing or variable jobs?
I should mention that it's most likely that fixed price jobs and ongoing jobs would be for different clients anyway, so maybe the risk isn't too great, but is enough to make me question it.
Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
I'm currently planning my start-up as a sole proprietor structural design engineer. I have a query about quotes and rates and wonder if anyone could help with your own experiences and opinions?
So, I've calculated my start-up costs and regular outgoings, including paying myself a basic salary. I've calculated hourly rates for the services I will offer which I am happy with, and think are reasonable. I worked them out based mainly on a combination of hourly rates from other engineering contractors (albeit other disciplines so not directly comparable) and from fixed price quotes from other designers who would be future competitors (although not knowing how many hours they had considered in their quotes for various jobs).
My question is about quoting jobs and whether or not to disclose my rates, or to try and keep them under wraps. For example, for some clients which I will be doing design jobs, I would quote a fixed price for a design, which is fine, no disclosure of rates required. However, what I'm wondering is how to go about it for other clients for whom I will be doing more site-based work, such as site visits and inspections etc, as this could be ongoing work where it would be more difficult to allocate expected hours in advance of a project starting. So I see here the benefit/necessity of providing rates and charging against them on a monthly basis. Or maybe the way to do this would be to provide a quote based on expected hours on such a job, but then provide rates for extra work above and beyond that quoted?
Could anyone offer advice as to how they quote for ongoing and variable jobs and whether anyone has any issues with disclosing rates? Is it a problem? I suppose, the risk is that my rates end up in the hands of a competitor and they could possibly use them to guess my price and undercut me. But how else would you quote for ongoing or variable jobs?
I should mention that it's most likely that fixed price jobs and ongoing jobs would be for different clients anyway, so maybe the risk isn't too great, but is enough to make me question it.
Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
