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Who are these industry leaders who only price their time at $60 to $120 per hour? (Certainly not anyone who's read the advice by tptacek, patio11, et al. about

Who are these industry leaders who only price their time at $60 to $120 per hour? (Certainly not anyone who's read the advice by tptacek, patio11, et al. about consulting.)

wavelet 12y ago
This is an introductory pricing to get a feel of what people think / need. Our experts’ time are definitely worth much more than that in their day jobs!
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pricing https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric... I highly recommend patio11's newsletter :)
- patio11 12y ago
  If anyone ever feels the need to do introductory pricing, do yourself a favor and estimate market rates, put them on the page, then strikethrough them and quote the introductory pricing. This conveys a) the customer is getting a deal and b) the service provider is not wildly irrational about what they're offering. We're clear that this pricing is wildly irrational, right? $30 for a half hour is, literally, not what it would cost to assess someone's skill at performing haircuts. Many of your customers, who after all have hiring authority for engineers, can do the math about what your interviewers' market wages and chargeout rates must presumably be. Those rates make these rates look like a joke. That quickly sets your customers to thinking "OK, there must be a catch, because clearly one cannot sustainably pay a CTO $30 per half hour to do schedule-in-advance work with a half-hour minimum? What is that catch?" None of the answers your prospects will dream up to that question will induce them to give you their business.
  - yarone 12y ago
    To add some data: Companies like Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) pay experts $750 per hour for one hour of talking to someone on the phone.
tptacek 12y ago
You're right. This is absurd pricing, both from the perspective of what expertise at this level costs, and the value the service intends to generate. A 1-hour interview in this service is ~0.08% of first year salary. A recruiter takes 15-25%. It's hard to take this seriously. It's one of those things where, if it worked, you'd have to assume the owners would be using it to print infinite money. At these prices, there's a positive ROI to having their panel of experts interview random people off the street. It's also not clear what the price tiers mean. "Junior/Senior/Management" --- is that the skill level of the interviewer?
- toong 12y ago
  >> "Junior/Senior/Management" --- is that the skill level of the interviewer? That's the position you would be hiring for, right ?
  - wavelet 12y ago
    That's right, the technical depth that the interviews would dive to would be different depending on the experience your candidate is expected to have.
    - sarciszewski 12y ago
      How much does a typical software company burn on talent acquisition? I'd wager it's at least one or two orders of magnitude larger than the rates posted on this page, but I've never hired before.
      - mooreds 12y ago
        The rule of thumb I've heard is 25-30% of first year's salary is spent on finding, hiring, onboarding and training a full time employee.
        tptacek 12y ago
        And it's worse than that, because not all hires work out, and that 25% number doesn't account for the costs you absorb with broken hires.
wavelet 12y ago
Very interesting to see all these comments about pricing. Our introductory prices were based off similar services where you chat with an experienced dev for an hour for help with your code, etc.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Are any of those services any good? People who can code well enough to improve a design after a 1-hour phone call generally aren't incentivized to spend an hour on the phone talking to random developers.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Are you talking about, e.g. "AirPair"? I wouldn't be an "expert" for hire on those services, either, because the prices are all race-to-the-bottom programming/engineering-skill-is-a-commodity prices.
icedchai 12y ago
Perhaps they're doing it during their day jobs, meaning on top of their normal job, effectively "double dipping." Could be a good, low-risk way to fill downtime.
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  Most employers don't tolerate this behavior. "What, you're making money for yourself during the time you're supposed to be working for us?!" It's unethical and almost certainly illegal, but IANAL.
  - icedchai 12y ago
    No argument that it would definitely be unethical. But how is it illegal? What criminal violations are occurring?

Who are these industry leaders who only price their time at $60 to $120 per hour? (Certainly not anyone who's read the advice by tptacek, patio11, et al. about consulting.)

wavelet 12y ago

This is an introductory pricing to get a feel of what people think / need. Our experts’ time are definitely worth much more than that in their day jobs!

sarciszewski 12y ago
https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pricing https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/saas_pric... I highly recommend patio11's newsletter :)
patio11 12y ago
If anyone ever feels the need to do introductory pricing, do yourself a favor and estimate market rates, put them on the page, then strikethrough them and quote the introductory pricing. This conveys a) the customer is getting a deal and b) the service provider is not wildly irrational about what they're offering. We're clear that this pricing is wildly irrational, right? $30 for a half hour is, literally, not what it would cost to assess someone's skill at performing haircuts. Many of your customers, who after all have hiring authority for engineers, can do the math about what your interviewers' market wages and chargeout rates must presumably be. Those rates make these rates look like a joke. That quickly sets your customers to thinking "OK, there must be a catch, because clearly one cannot sustainably pay a CTO $30 per half hour to do schedule-in-advance work with a half-hour minimum? What is that catch?" None of the answers your prospects will dream up to that question will induce them to give you their business.
- yarone 12y ago
  To add some data: Companies like Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) pay experts $750 per hour for one hour of talking to someone on the phone.

tptacek 12y ago

You're right. This is absurd pricing, both from the perspective of what expertise at this level costs, and the value the service intends to generate. A 1-hour interview in this service is ~0.08% of first year salary. A recruiter takes 15-25%. It's hard to take this seriously. It's one of those things where, if it worked, you'd have to assume the owners would be using it to print infinite money. At these prices, there's a positive ROI to having their panel of experts interview random people off the street. It's also not clear what the price tiers mean. "Junior/Senior/Management" --- is that the skill level of the interviewer?

toong 12y ago
>> "Junior/Senior/Management" --- is that the skill level of the interviewer? That's the position you would be hiring for, right ?
- wavelet 12y ago
  That's right, the technical depth that the interviews would dive to would be different depending on the experience your candidate is expected to have.
  - sarciszewski 12y ago
    How much does a typical software company burn on talent acquisition? I'd wager it's at least one or two orders of magnitude larger than the rates posted on this page, but I've never hired before.
    - mooreds 12y ago
      The rule of thumb I've heard is 25-30% of first year's salary is spent on finding, hiring, onboarding and training a full time employee.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        And it's worse than that, because not all hires work out, and that 25% number doesn't account for the costs you absorb with broken hires.

wavelet 12y ago

Very interesting to see all these comments about pricing. Our introductory prices were based off similar services where you chat with an experienced dev for an hour for help with your code, etc.

tptacek 12y ago
Are any of those services any good? People who can code well enough to improve a design after a 1-hour phone call generally aren't incentivized to spend an hour on the phone talking to random developers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Are you talking about, e.g. "AirPair"? I wouldn't be an "expert" for hire on those services, either, because the prices are all race-to-the-bottom programming/engineering-skill-is-a-commodity prices.

icedchai 12y ago

Perhaps they're doing it during their day jobs, meaning on top of their normal job, effectively "double dipping." Could be a good, low-risk way to fill downtime.

sarciszewski 12y ago
Most employers don't tolerate this behavior. "What, you're making money for yourself during the time you're supposed to be working for us?!" It's unethical and almost certainly illegal, but IANAL.
- icedchai 12y ago
  No argument that it would definitely be unethical. But how is it illegal? What criminal violations are occurring?