how to charge for my services?

[whitecremeegg]

Without being too outing as to my job and company, I offer a service along the lines of proof writing, reviewing important reports, policies and documents to ensure they are complaint with the relevant law etc.

I do tracked changes and comments on each document and write a report of recommended improvements/additions and the client can either take that forward themselves or I can rewrite it all for them.

I tell clients my hourly rate but they nearly always insist on a 'final' cost before deciding whether to book me.

They then say oh its only a few documents and it shouldn't take more than a few hours, then they take the piss by sending me loads of documents, or those 'few' documents end up being 50 pages each or something.

So how do I provide an accurate quote to those asking for an accurate final quote when I don't know how many pages or documents they will actually send me? I need the work but I don't want to lose clients by going back and saying hey this is more work than I expected so pay me more?

I'm quite new to it so how do I handle it? The demand is there but I'm finding the demand for exact quotes to be very hard to provide.

You need to take a hard line, just as a e.g. lawyer would do. "This is my hourly rate". Theyre implying you're unprofessional and going to take the piss with hours as a way to negotiate that hourly rate down with a "job rate". Price resistance is a natural part of selling. "Yes, those are my rates and are non negotiable."

I wouldn't do this, but in principle if they still push you can say ok, whats the budget you had in mind? And the figure they come back with you say i will do x pages for that price (pages not documents), and anything over, my hourly rate is x. Get that in writing so if you agree say 10 pages, and then send you 10 documents totalling 100 pages, your invoice is payable and enforceable.

You dictate your prices. You. If you sell yourself short you'll be running around for cheap rates for people who don't appreciate you, leaving you no time to go and find good clients, produce good work, and get good reviews.