Here is a link to a recent consulting fee study from Consulting Success.

Over 33,000 consultants were polled, including Yours Truly. Not sure how many responses, but with that size database the results are statistically significant.

Here are some a key findings:

• 44% of the consultants with less than 4 years experience earn over six figures. Yes, even if you are just starting out, the potential is there.
• 72.5% of consultants bill based on time. Very popular with technical consultants, but I recommend charging by the project rather than by the hour.
• For 56.7% of consultants, their average consulting project is $10,000 or less. Many well executed smaller projects still add up to big $$$. They did for us.

Unfortunately, the study does not share specific rates. But primarily serving management consultants, Consulting Success emphasizes ROI (return on investment) based fees.

For example, if you can show a predicted ROI of $100,000, one should be able to sell a fee of $10-20,000 — regardless of time spent.

In my opinion, ROI is not as useful for technical consultants where clients are looking for concrete solutions to specific problems. Nevertheless, the data is still useful.

Special thanks to Consulting Success for sharing their results.

You may be interested in these past posts:

• Mangement vs Technical Consulting… (2011)
• Questions on Fees… (2013)
• Some Comments on Fees… (2015)
• Don’t Cut Your Fees… Cut the Scope… (2016)
• Consulting Fee Study – 2107… (2017)

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