Many people assume that since you work from home you should charge less. I disagree - when you consider that most home based business people are supporting families, paying their own benefit package including medical and dental, and have increased liability in terms of insurance and licensing - I think home based businesses should charge close to or
same as other businesses.Home based business can offer that's unique is personalized, customized service that may not be available from a larger company. These extra touches are well worth paying for in my opinion.
In figuring out how much to charge for your services you can do a number of things to set fees:
1) Go online to some of wage comparison sites and see what jobs similar to yours pay a) www.salary.com b) www.monstermoving.monster.com c) www.salaryexpert.com
2) Also, online take a look at some of job sites and see what salaries are being offered to people who would do same type of job as your are going to be doing. Remember though your work isn’t 9 – 5 each day....being self employed often means longer hours and there is no overtime pay.
3) Talk to people you know who work in industry you are entering and see if you can get an idea about salary range
4) If what you’re doing is something very unusual and unique ask yourself “what would I pay for this service?” “what can my customers afford to pay”
5) Sometimes your pricing REALLY does depend on what customer is willing to pay – wealthier clients will pay more for a haircut than someone who makes minimum wage (eg. $500 versus $7.99) This is why you need to ABSOLUTELY clear about who your customer is – and to remember you CANNOT be all things to all people.
