Why so expensive?

[f431e6a2]

I noticed some freelancers charge over $100 per hour and their profile shows they have already earned 100s of thousand dollars. I am curious to understand what makes them so expensive and still getting hired. 🙂

[millermelanie]

Hire one and see! 

[bobafett999]

they bring 'value'. 

if they had regular job they would earn in six figures. 

[reinierb]

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@Nilanjan B wrote:

I noticed some freelancers charge over $100 per hour and their profile shows they have already earned 100s of thousand dollars. I am curious to understand what makes them so expensive and still getting hired. 🙂

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For the moment I am going to believe that you are genuinely interested in knowing how some people here with $100+ hourly rates get hired. I am also going to believe that you are not in any way suggesting that these same people should not charge $100+ per hour simply because they are working as freelancers.

[petra_r]

Why so expensive?

Why not? Everything in the world is worth the intersection of what one person is prepared to offer and another person is prepared to accept.

Or in short:

Question: "Why do you charge so much?"

Answer: "Because I can."

[versailles]

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@Nilanjan B wrote:

I noticed some freelancers charge over $100 per hour and their profile shows they have already earned 100s of thousand dollars. I am curious to understand what makes them so expensive and still getting hired. 🙂

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Is $100 per hour expensive? What is expensive at $100 per hour? My GP charges more that than, I don't think it's expensive at all considering how long he spent in med school and in hospitals.

I hired a CPA here who charges over $100 per hour because he had an extensive knowledge of US accounting so I wouldn't do something totally stupid which would cost me a lot of money.

So, is it expensive? It depends.

[prestonhunter]

A lot of clients will hire these freelancers in order to save money.

Technically, the freelancers have a higher hourly rate.

That doesn't mean they are more expensive.

A client may have tried hiring $5/hour freelancers, and been burned a number of times because those freelancers were not even able to finish the task, even after billing hundreds of dollars or more.

I am often hired by clients who are looking to save money by hiring one of the highest-paid freelancers they can find.

[resultsassoc · Accepted solution]

In a one-hour $200 phone call with a business owner seeking help to sell his business at an enormous loss, I told him how to keep the business and put him in contact with a competitor better qualified to implement the solution. $200, he saved $200,00. I'd call that cheap.

In a one-hour exploration of a fit with someone seeking a high-powered management consultant for three months full-time, I identified both the real issue and its resolution. His internal resources could implement the solution. What was that worth?

In 2008 I flew to Europe to meet with a business owner wanting to price his software for licensing. The software was pure gold, making him half a million a year. With milk going for a million dollars a gallon, why sell the cow? We hand-wrote a business plan, one page, over lunch and he still keeps it with him 24/7. In January he bought an island off Maui. How much was that worth?

20 years ago I was asked to review a project budgeted at $12M taking a full year; I would be paid 10% of everything I saved. In three hours I handed him signed and bonded bids to finish the thing for $6M in six months. He never paid me, claiming "Nobody is worth $200,000 an hour." Please tell me you don't agree with him.

[f431e6a2]

Thank you Mr Bill for explaining it so logically 🙂

I have a lot to learn from you...