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Comment by tomatowurst | Hacker News Reader

Does anybody make $1000 USD / hr? What is your day to day like? How many clients do you have and how many hours do you bill per year? Do you actually work 2087 hours per year which would net you $2MM/year?

I'm curious how some people are able to bill such high amounts and how they got started. It must also be extra stressful since its not like you are working for a company either so you need to do marketing and find clients as well.

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That last part is actually the reason why hourly rates tend to be so high. You can't bill all the hours.

A common rule of thumb for setting a billable rate is 3x to 4x the hourly-equivalent salary. If you are currently making $200k/yr working a full-time gig with good benefits, then your hourly-equivalent salary is $100, and you should bill hours out at around $300/hr to $400/hr on a billable-hour basis.

So, you should figure that someone who would earn a TC of around $500k-650k/yr would be billed out at around $1,000/hr

thanks yeah this was what I was thinking, 4x of hourly rate of salary

It's not uncommon in my field. And quite a few of the people billing that rate or higher actually net greater than $2m, because they get credit not only for what they bill but what work they bring in for others to bill.

That said, $1k/hr billed does not directly translate to $1k/hr earned. Usually there is shared overhead, etc taken out first.

what's your field?

I know a attorney/lobbyist who make pretty close to that. They spend a lot of time on the phone, doing emails, etc. The key thing is they know their shit and and pick up the phone and get people when needed.

Almost nobody is producing work output on an hourly basis worth more than $200/hr. You’re paying for what and who they know, together. The good ones are worth it.

More like bill one client $1000/hr for travel and work on another client's $1000/hr case during the trip. /nojoke

That is fraud, and if you get caught you would be looking at prison time.

And in the case of the legal and accounting professions, doing this will get your license revoked.

It's inconclusive if it's fraud without knowing contract details.

If you're being paid simply to travel, then it is not fraudulent to also work on another client. If your being paid to travel _and_ focus on that client, then it would be fraudulent to work on another client.

No, if you are paid by a client hourly for travel, you cannot bill that same hour to another client. That's bog standard for every profession.

If you bill two clients for the same hour, that's "double billing," and it's fraud, and a number of accountants and lawyers have had their licenses suspended or (more commonly) terminated over this. Most of them usually plea bargain to avoid time behind bars, and this is generally acceptable because the true punishment is that their professional career is dead.

Very few (basically no) client will agree to pay you for travel time while also permitting you to work on another client's case for that same time. (Note however that if invoicing client for expenses like tickets but not for travel time, it is generally acceptable to work on another client's matter during the time spent traveling.)

Oh, yea, I agree that by default you should assume that travel time == client time.

I'm getting a bit "well, technically" on this. While rare, it is possible to have a contract that allows for this.

question: how would they know?

If they suspect and sue it would come out during discovery. There is very little you can do to hide that fact at any point.

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