On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:28:20 -0700, Tim Wescott
wrote:



For yourself, take the amount you make working for someone else and
double it. That accounts for the roof over your head, the benefits, the
nonbillable time you spend working (phone calls, estimating, running to
the bank, etc.).

For your equipment take the amount it's worth and divide by 20000 (2000
working hours in a year, more or less, and a 10% annual rate on the
loans you'd have to have if you bought it all on time).

If welding is like electronics engineering that should work out to about
3x as much as you make per hour working for someone else.

Or, if you're really, really good just charge them up the wazoo and know
you're worth it 'cause no one else can solve their problem.

That's a good business model, may not always be appropriate for
"pickup" jobs. I use a market-based approach: what might the job be
worth to the requestor and how willing or eager am I to do it? I
charge big corps a lot because they can be such a PITA, do some jobs
for much less if I really enjoy them and/ or learn something from
them.