A topic on Twitter the last few days has been what autistic people charge for their time to deliver presentations etc.
I do lots of presentations and events. I tweeted about the pricing I use and the pricing I’ve seen other use and people fed back that it was helpful.
So I thought it would be worth sticking it in a blog post.
But first, I need to explain about when I charge.
I don’t charge a fee to the majority of the events I do (> 90%). This is because most presenting I do is part of my BBC job.
My line manager is happy to give me an afternoon or two a month to go and deliver presentations. However I don’t get the preparation time. Most talks take 30+ hours to prepare and some talks have evolved over a decade or more.
While I don’t charge a fee, I do charge my support costs (up to £260 a day) and my travel + hotel costs (42p per mile).
The agency who do my support normally invoice the event directly. I don’t ace as a middleman. This keeps the arrangement clear and transparent.
I occasionally agree to do a presentation as part of a skill swap. Where i go do a presentation and in return the organisation I worked with do a presentation or some other thing in kind for the BBC.
I do occasionally charge a fee. Normally I charge a fee when I am working with larger charities, producing media (videos, podcasts, etc), delivering a lecture for a university course or training to a support agency.
If I charge a fee it’s on top of the other costs. If an event turns me down based on the fee then so be it.
What I charge depends a little on what I am doing. For delivering an off the shelf presentation is around £350 for the day, but for more intensive things like workshops it can be up to £700.
For custom presentations, if the client wants a copyright cleared side deck they can distribute I charge more. Starting at around £1400. The cost accounts the amount of time I need to take off.
I charge via my limited company which is VAT registered so I have to add VAT at 20%.
As a bonus topic, I am often asked why charging is complex. The short answer is because my employment situation is complex and charging adds a huge degree of pressure.
My day job is with the BBC where I am a research engineer with a focus on accessibility. Some autism event are BBC relevant (discussions employment or digital access) but many are not (eg visiting schools).
If an event isn’t a good fit for my BBC role then I may take annual leave in order to present at it and that’s when I charge for my time.
Charging adds pressure. For the most part I enjoy what I do and the added pressure can make an event to stressful to consider.
I hope sharing this information is useful.
