What percentage of your billing rate do you actually make? What do you think the acceptable level is?

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Unless you’re in a super small boutique, individual bill rate is not something firms really look at because theres so many games we play across engagements and accounts. We look at blended rate across the level or even practice. Negotiating comp needs to be on something you can control, eg “I being x skill set that is sold out and needed across multiple engagements,” “I’ve got offer x yz that are offering more.” Something like that, you saying “it’s unfair you pay me a lower percentage of my bill rate compared to fishbowl comments” is a losing proposition

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Appreciate the perspective. There are other reasons I tend to believe I am underpaid, this is just one that is easily quantifiable. I’m more focused on why my percentage was reduced post promotion, but was curious to hear what others across the industry make in comparison to their billable rate.

About 25% give or take, assuming 100% utilization. Utilization is closer to 90% in reality after factoring in vacation, sick time, non-billable admin stuff, etc), which would make comp closer to 28-30% when looking at the actual amount I’m billing.

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You also want to add in PTO, insurance, etc into your comp. If you want a good idea of what percent of profit a consulting firm makes, look at the reported margins of publicly traded firms.

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Did you stop getting paid when you're on the bench? How about pto? Who pays for the office rent and janitors and it staff and etc? Im about 25 percent but that isn't a reason to negotiate your pay unless you're not really at a consulting firm and you're working with a contractor body shop. There's a lot that goes into the math and they're going to pay you based market rates (aka what you're worth to them and what you're worth to other companies in your geographic area)

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I’m currently only making about 14% of my billable rate, and when I did some research I saw that many people talked about “the law of thirds”. Considering the many benefits we receive that factors into TC, I assumed 30% would be a bit too much, but.. 14% still feels low.

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When I model benefits to get from hourly to “fully burdened”, the generally accepted benchmark is 30%. If you have exceptionally good benefits, flex it up a few points

Assuming 100% util, I make about 1/3. If you include bonus its also 1/3 but rounding down instead of up :P

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Your pay is what I pay you or otherwise pay someone else to provide a service. Your bill rate is part of what I charge clients for outcomes. They are not necessarily connected. Said differently, what I am willing to pay you and what the client is willing to pay aren’t necessarily linked.

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I mean I see your point. But in terms of what’s actually a fair percentage, the norm from what I’ve gathered is closer to 1/3. Again, I know there overhead and other benefits are involved, but considering benefits in consulting are pretty standard, this seems well below an acceptable level. Also given my recent promotion (and billing rate increase) my percentage decreased. I’d at least like it to stay at a similar level, especially considering the benefits and overhead are the exact same.

24%

What comes between billing rate and salary:
- client discounts
- corporate tax
- unbillable time
- overhead (service staff, office rent,…)
- dividend (Accenture, Oliver Wyman)
- Partner bonuses

Expense buckets that always puzzled me in consulting:
- Managers earning 200k, staying on the beach for 1 year before being laid off, for which they are paid another three months salary
- EAs based in Switzerland entering expense reports and managing calendars for 100k annually

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