Mediators, are your hourly rates keeping you afloat?

Mediators, are you charging what you should be? Are your fees paying your bills and leaving you with money for the piggybank? And are your fees representative of your skill and experience while also taking into account your market and competition?

One of the most frequent questions I get from my mediation grad students and consulting clients is “how much should I charge?” Rates are generally based on two sets of factors: What you want and need to earn, and market factors like competition, industry standards, demand for services, and geography.

Your business research should help you identify a rate based on the latter factors. For the first set of factors, try Freelance Switch’s free online Hourly Rate Calculator. You can use without registering or telling them anything about yourself. It asks you to fill in figures associated with your business costs, your personal costs, your billable hours, and desired profit, after which you can click on the calculator to identify the rate you can charge based on those variables.

It’s a good little calculator, capturing the data you want to be sure to consider. If you’re just getting started in the mediation business, you can use it to play with several scenarios and see how those changes affect your fee.

                       

Tammy Lenski

Dr. Tammy Lenski helps individuals, pairs, teams, and audiences navigate disagreement better, address friction, and build alignment. Her current work centers on creating the conditions for robust collaboration and sound decisions while fostering resilient personal and professional relationships. Her conflict resolution podcast and blog, Disagree Better, are available at https://tammylenski.com/archives/… MORE >