How Much Should I Charge?

I've been asked to write short 4 - 6 bar sight reading exercises for piano. At the moment they are for grade 2. I've been asked how much I charge per exercise but I don't really know what the going rate for something like this is. And should more be charged the higher grade level they are (as they would probably take more time to make)? Any advice on what to charge?

How much is your time worth?

There are some useful calculators (like this one: http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/ ) to help you figure out a baseline that makes sense for you. Unfortunately, it's hard to give you meaningful answers since your rates must reflect your situation.

The "going" rates for this kind of thing will be tough to track down, but depending on your experience level I would estimate these being worth about $250 per exercise to you. That's assuming your time is worth about $50/hour and it takes you 5 hours to write one — not that you'd charge hourly, but it's a useful way of estimating costs. Alternatively you could negotiate a package deal for a bunch of exercises.

This is all very subjective territory, so really the best answer to your question is this: figure out how much you have to charge in order to have the work be worth your time — and then charge that.

They don't take nearly as long as 5 hours to write one. That said, I don't want to charge too little. I guess with these things you do have to take into account not just the time it takes but all the hours you put in to get to the point where you can do this work. Thanks for the help. Good link that site also!