Thread: Mileage charge?

I just got an e-mail from someone just under 1.5 hours from me who wants me to do a bellygram at a birthday party. It's not exactly down the street though, so I'm thinking I should add a "distance fee" because it's over an hour drive... I'm just not sure how much. What would you charge? What's the standard?

Thanks!

Whew, that's quite a distance.

I can tell you that the Internal Revenue Service allows 48 cents per mile to be used as a tax deduction, so that's one way to look at it.

we charge a flat rate distance fee for each town outside our circle.
sounds like you will be getting a good pay day!
z

Tack on mileage, + 20% of your dance fee x hour of driving. Comes up to a nice # that makes sense, and you can explain how you calculate it to customers. It's not just the gas or wear and tear that they are paying for, they are paying for your time.

I like kina's calculation - I usually do milage plus a little extra (depending on how expensive gas is), but her way is much more scientific!

I charge $50/hour driving time - each way outside my "home territory". I've had multiple (attempted) bookings in the greater Sacramento area! 7 hours round trip - what's up with that?

I like $60 per hour because you can easily break it into increments (a dollar a minute).

Also, I never count the distance I would normally travel without an extra fee. So, if I'm willing to drive up to an hour for most clients without charging them, I would only charge the person who's 1.5 hours away for 30 minutes of travel (each way though).

I charge a travel fee, you can see my rates page, feel free to use what you like from it,
www.boulderbellygrams.com
click on contact info/rates page

Originally Posted by yasmilah

I like $60 per hour because you can easily break it into increments (a dollar a minute).

Also, I never count the distance I would normally travel without an extra fee. So, if I'm willing to drive up to an hour for most clients without charging them, I would only charge the person who's 1.5 hours away for 30 minutes of travel (each way though).

This is a good point - my milage only kicks in after 30 minutes, because I live in the sticks and the drive to the metro area is about 30 minutes. So is someone is an hour away, yes, they only get a 30 minute milage surcharge.

Thanks for the input everyone!

Kina ~ I really like the formula! It's going in the "belly dance file o' $$ stuff"

Laura ~ I live about an hour and a half away from the Atlanta metro area, and this party is just southeast of Atlanta and works out to just under a 2 hour drive for me because the highways go in all sorts of weird directions here.

Maria ~ Thanks for the link to your page, I like the idea of giving people a travel charge by county so they can figure things out from there.

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Okay, so I'm thinking that since mapquest says that it's just under 2 hours from my area of the state to theirs, and the bellydancers in their area (ATL metro) have higher rates, I need to not undercut them either. So I'm thinking $200 which includes my usual bellygram rate ($100), brings it up to the average rate for ATL ($150) and adds another $50 for travel.

Does that sound about right?

I usually charge my gas expense plus at least one show fee since I have to find a sub for that day if I am scheduled on a regular gig. I live in San Diego, and when I do shows like in Orange COunty or LA about 1.5-2 hour drive each way, I charge at least $350 but if I know that it is an ethnic party with good tipping or referral or they hired me before for example for wedding and I know I am getting really well tips, I might go down to $300.