The rate card that fell out of my client's binder

Last month I was sitting in a coffee shop in Portland and this woman next to me was going over a contract with her contractor. She pulled out this binder and a paper slipped out, it was their actual rate card with the markup percentages written in the margins. I didn't mean to snoop but it was right there, and it hit me that most of us never see what the other side really thinks our work is worth. I took a photo of my own invoice structure later and realized I was undercharging by about 15% on hourly work. Has anyone else ever stumbled on a competitor's or client's internal numbers like that, and did you actually adjust your rates afterward?

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zarat3712d ago

The REAL problem is that rate cards like that are usually built on whatever the contractor thinks they can get away with, not on actual costs or value delivered. I once found a vendor's internal spreadsheet with a "pain point multiplier" column that jacked up prices based on how desperate the client seemed, and THAT was way more revealing than any markup margin. It made me realize the numbers you stumble on are less about fairness and more about how well the other party reads the room.