The term Solopreneur describes the essence of two different words as ‘Solo‘ defines a single person who handles all their work, a single human responsible for any terms and conditions; whereas ‘preneur‘ defines the work of an entrepreneur who runs their entire business all alone, single-handedly.
Altogether, Solopreneur describes the existence of one human who can overtake all the responsibilities of their business with the help of zero employees. He or she handles production, data analysis, advice, searching concepts, unique ideas and thoughts, and many more that are related to his or her business individually. Produce profits in return as income, after dealing with different risks and multiple difficulties, but they alone enjoy various rewards.
But as an individual, after taking all responsibilities of business in the real-world, difficulties occur in setting a rate of Solopreneurs as their income and source of revenue. To distinguish between their work for other companies and customers or received income in return as profit. A Solopreneur should set his or her rate as compared to their price of work, ways to complete it before given deadlines, also consider the type of work given, how they perform it on customer’s demand by taking care of their production material and goods that is provided to your targeted audience.
Here are a few Ways to Set Your Rates As a Solopreneur while charging your fee.
Solopreneur charges according to a flat fee
Flat fees act as a stable rate of a fee that does not vary according to the pattern of work, time consumed by that work, amount of work to do, etc. It acts as a linear rate of income that has a fixed price of your given work. It has a flat rate structure that combinedly charges a predefined set of fees with no changes due to work.
The solopreneur should be allowed to charge flat fees on certain fixed prices on particular assignments, projects, or even campaigns. This will provide you a chance to get away from the tracking time limit on a particular project to complete. All this dedication to doing work will give you better revenue in return.
Merits of charging a flat fee
- A fixed price comes with many advantages. Solopreneur should demand some cash for income in advance or it acts as an investment for the beginning of the project that will carry some section of the work, conducts cash flows.
- The work contains predefined stages of conduction of all portions of segments to complete it before the deadlines. The work should differentiate its starting point, followed by an ending of different stages of work. Therefore, you get a sufficient amount of time to focus on your activities or on different clients.
- You also allow collecting a high rate of income by completing short-term defined projects.
- Competition of the project does not depend upon any time limit, you are not supposed to track your time to complete the project.
- All these short-term projects not only provide you a flat fee but also allow you to face different people or clients, allow you to establish networking in the market, and many more.
Demerits of flat fee
- Your client may mislead your trust and take back their project in between the given schedule and delay your total payment.
- Short-term projects and campaigns with a fixed amount allow facing an unreliable source of income or total revenue and also make you busy to maintain your job in the market and make sure to receive multiple projects in the future. Read About 50 Small Business Ideas for Solopreneurs
Solopreneur charges according to a retainer fee
The structure of fee defines the ‘payment in advance‘ concept, before starting a particular project or service in future demands. This structure defines the cost that should be paid upfront, which secures the commitment of work, which is to be performed by a Solopreneur in the future. This amount does not provide the portion of the final amount. The retainer fee conducted by multiple clients allows the advance amount to be defined as a down payment for your future services. It gives the chance of refunding the payments if the cost of production is less than compared to the planned payment.
Merits of a retainer fee
- You should build a healthy relationship with your clients in that time of journey of an ongoing process of completing the project to achieve success.
- You allow regulating your clients’ projects without keeping track of detailed time consumed for an ongoing process.
- The final amount of your project is not defined, the amount acts as a recurring payment just like a monthly salary that provides you better revenue.
- The stability of your current business is in the way to achieve new goals and set a good pack of revenue in the future. A retainer fee allows you to set free from searching for new clients or convey present clients to maintain that condition to work with you.
Demerits of a retainer fee
- Clients will give you an extra amount of work in the middle of your given schedule for the sake of that they have provided you a good amount of advance money. So always be clear on your pattern or amount of work.
- It provides you a drawback of overworked or under-worked to complete one or more projects at the same time. It may also disturb you while targeting new clients for more business.
- Clients want you to do renegotiation of their total fee at the time of the client’s annual budgeting.
Solopreneur charges according to the hourly fee
The function of ‘hourly fee‘ defines the hourly rates that a Solopreneur receives after doing a job for an hour. The amount is fixed according to their work and after each hour of work you get paid; in return that is described in terms of time work. This gives the portion of payment a new look from those who get a monthly salary at a fixed rate of the amount.
This can be also considered providing advice or take charges of the client’s case hourly and get paid after completing that job. They can characterize their extra income during the holidays, festivals, or on odd hours, etc. The solopreneur should maintain detailed records of their individual work & its respective time and get paid accordingly with no hassle.
Merits of the hourly fee
- You allow your desired work style to pursue according to their project payments, as you charge a high amount in straightforward demands for the client’s needs.
- Your qualification matters the most, as your highly skilled on a specific task will allow you to get paid a fair sum of money in return.
- You can manage all your hourly meetings depending upon whether you are hired for any consultant or for performing the tasks. You should avoid unnecessary calls or meetings and try to spend more time professionally.
Demerits of the hourly fee
- The hourly fee may allow you to receive a good sum of money in return after completing your job but to achieve the set goals of your payments, you are needed to force yourself to work odd hours as well.
- You may get pushback by your clients as you took very long to complete your job, they will think that you took a large sum of money as payment but are not capable to do work in time or as per the commitments.
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Solopreneur charges according to a commission fee
Commission itself defines the amount of payment you receive when you achieve your desired goal of sales of goods and services. Solopreneur directly advises their clients from which their business receives a massive amount of profit; out of which you receive a pack of an amount as a commission in return for your advice.
It will allow you to gain handsome income as rewards from your clients, as you are highly prepared and know what to do in a business to make a profit. All you need to get is enough experience to perform these jobs.
Merits of the commission fee
- By helping your targeted client to increase their sales and gain profit, you get high incentives in return as income.
- The technique of your work becomes more flexible by examining it in different platforms of the market for the completion of your work.
- There is no drawback of maintaining a record of time for every work.
- If you are capable enough to help your clients in their critical situation of the business, you serve them for a long period with your respective client or partners.
Demerits of the commission fee
- The payments of your commission can get delayed if the sales target of a business is for a long-term cycle.
- Scaling your current business comes in a difficult situation, as you are not capable enough to make a good sum of revenue.
Solopreneur will allow you to choose any type of charge fee structure to robust their accounting as well as managing all business systems. These are the Best Ways to Set Your Rates As a Solopreneur to work for the clients and the rest of everything will automatically fall in the accurate place.