Hourly rate for freelance Powerpoint massaging?

October 4, 2006 8:01 AM

What hourly rate should I charge to edit a Powerpoint presentation?

I'm a 4th-year PhD student, and I TA'd for a certain professor in my department last spring; in that time I was also the de facto tech coordinator for the class. He approached me recently and asked me to help edit and spiffy up a Powerpoint presentation that he'll be giving to a few important groups, with compensation. I don't expect it to be more than a few hours of work at most, and he asked me for what I thought would be a fair rate, and now I pass that on to the hive mind. What is a reasonable and fair hourly rate to ask him for?

posted by The Michael The to Work & Money (9 answers total)

As a PhD student, you should of course grab this opportunity to suck up. When he asks what he owes you answer with a big smile: "A glowing letter of reference would be nice."
posted by LarryC at 8:06 AM on October 4, 2006

You might consider saying that humorously but then add your rate. My experience is in the UK system however, but there is an expectation that students get paid. Your rate should be based on the level of complexity of the ppt required and your level of skill/qualification. At my UK institution, you could safely get £13ph at least (equivalent to demonstrator rate), and while this approaches $25ph this may not work very well as direct comparison.
posted by biffa at 8:11 AM on October 4, 2006

Between $25 and $50 (DOE) an hour is what I pay unless it turns out to be much more than editing and spiffying -- which it often does, so review the deck first. In that case, my deck-expert (dexpert?) and I usually go with a flat fee.

But in a more practical way, I'd go with LarryC -- if you can afford the few hours and are not desperately in need of a couple hundred bucks, do it for free just this once, saying, This one's on me, I'm building a portfolio, I'd love to work with you again in the future, I charge $25/hr., or a flat fee, depending on the project.

Good luck!
posted by thinkpiece at 8:24 AM on October 4, 2006

I sometimes do similar work for a former boss, on a freelance basis. I'm a grad student, too. I get $25/hour.
posted by acridrabbit at 8:51 AM on October 4, 2006

I do this stuff at a major (as in huge) research university in the U.S. and only charge $20, but I definitely stipulate that a letter or some other sort of fringe benefit might be asked for in the future... I'm a PhD student as well (I guess I'm cheaper than the rest).

I say $20 to the faculty I deal with because it's about $5 more per hour than we're supposed to be making as a TA/RA.
posted by sablazo at 9:08 AM on October 4, 2006

Thanks people. He was pretty adamant about paying, so I requested $20/hour and a letter-to-be-requested. I wanted to stay on the low end; a "pleasantly surprised by lower-than-expected cost" reaction is what I was going for.
posted by The Michael The at 9:29 AM on October 4, 2006

For the next one, consider quoting $25 per hour plus an additional amount (up to $10 per hour) at his discretion if he is delighted with the result. This approach very often nets the additional amount.
posted by yclipse at 10:12 AM on October 4, 2006

Pretend you were doing this eight hours a day, five days a week, with two weeks off for vacation. How much do you expect your annual salary to be? Add in dollars for the health insurance and other benefits your "employer" would be contributing on an annual basis (hint, it's more than you probably think).

Now divide by 2080 (40 * 52), and you have an hourly rate.

Example: $25/hour is $52,000 per year, which would probably work itself out to ~$30,000 per year after taxes and benefits. If that's how much you think you're worth, go for it.
posted by frogan at 3:16 PM on October 4, 2006

>> with two weeks off for vacation.

A paid vacation, obviously. ;-)
posted by frogan at 3:16 PM on October 4, 2006