Rates--Part 3

Let's say INDEXER Q averages 30 hours a week, and she wants to earn $85,000 to cover expenses. After a while, she's whittled her BA down to 33%. This means she needs to earn $85,000 working 20 hours a week, or approximately $82 per hour.

What does this quick analysis tell her?

First, it gives her a goal to work toward. She realizes she needs to whittle her BA down to the least amount of time. She might need to learn some shortcuts to make it go faster.

Next, it tells her that if she averages 10 pages per hour, and she charges $3.00 per page, and she's only working 20 hours, she's got a big problem. In this case, she's only capable of $600, or a total of $30 per hour, not the $82 that she needs.

(Remember, she's working 30 hours, but 10 of those hours are BA time, leaving her only 20 hours for actual indexing projects. She's charging $3 per page, and only does 10 pages per hour. 10 pages multiplied by $3 is $30 per hour, multiplied by 20 project hours is only $600 per week.)

In order for INDEXER Q to bump up her average to $82 per hour, what must she do? A combination of three things:

1. Average more pages per hour.
2. Charge more per page.
3. Work more hours.

Let's say after more practice she gets faster, and she doubles her average number of pages indexed in an hour, and now does 20 pages per hour. Then, she also decides to work for $3.50 per page, and not less. But, for her situation the hours are non-negotiable. They must remain at 20 hours.

She will now earn $70 per hour ($3.50 multiplied by 20 pages). Still not good enough. She needs to average $82 per hour. But, she knows she just can't pick up anymore speed. She's topped out at 20 pages, and her hours are still non-negotiable. She can't whittle anymore time off her BA thereby increasing the number of hours for actual indexing projects. The only thing she can now adjust is her rate.

She will need to charge at least $4.10 per page, average 20 pages per hour, and work 20 hours in order to meet expenses of $85,000. To arrive at this, take her average target rate of $82 per hour and divide by the average number of pages (20) she can do per hour. The result is a rate of $4.10 per page.

The problem with this is

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