Subbing Rates

Keeps coming up this one

There are, or should be 2 x rates in your portfolio

1. Rates you charge your customers

2. Rates you charge trade

1. Rates you charge customers can vary from 80p per mile (for those that like racing around being busy busy busy but with very little business acumen) to £1.50 per mile (for those that like sitting around doing diddly squat for most of the day happy in the knowledge that when they do move, they're taking the piss out of whoever it is they're working for).

   Most of us are somewhere inbetween the 2

2. Trade prices vary even more than that, depending very much on where you are, where you're going, and where you want to be

Some have the same rate for both 1 and 2, and some see the sense of trying to maximise their profits and/or dead mileage by offering a "reduced"rate

This will vary but will be anywhere from 50-80p per mile.

Happy hunting

I am of course talkin small van.

You should have given this advice to SB Couriers on his posting.

I agree, this is the sort of reply I was after.. But duly noted, thanks :)

I think that rate discussions should be banned because if you dont know what rate to charge you should not even be on here! Some people say £1. 50 a mile on a sv is taking the piss but if your customer makes a profit of 6 billion a year and he wants you collect from Leeds in 20 minutes and run at 85 MPH all the way to inverness why should you not charge £1.50 a mile. Why is it Ok for him to drive a Bentley but you can only have a 10 year old focus. Yes I will charge £75 a mile to trade but when a multimillionair books a job you dont think Im going to sit and beg for a 90p a mile no way Im getting whats mine and thats why Im still trading!

Sorry 75p a mile to the trade!

Well put Bob!

Everyone is capatalist at heart, [even though many will not admit it].

moray couriers said:

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That's me out then as I don't think my van would do 85mph on the A9 north of Perth, or anyone else's for that matter.

You dont do Euro jobs then? :) Cant imagine driving hundreds of miles on the continent driving slowly.

Seriously though, I cant recall any van I have owned in the last 10 years that would not achieve 90 mph?

[bit off topic though]

Rapid, my van can do 90, but the supermarket trucks trundling along the A9 at 40 mph prevents a lot of overtaking as it's mostly single carriageway. And driven all over Europe at slowish speed, mind you it was with heavy and abnormal loads ie. JCB deliveries. I try to go careful along that A9 as well as a nice policeman put on his pretty blue lights late one night last year and for £300 he gave me five credit points on my license, wasn't he a nice man? Sorry off topic ...

Barnsley Shipping said:

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I think that rate discussions should be banned because if you dont know what rate to charge you should not even be on here! Some people say £1. 50 a mile on a sv is taking the piss but if your customer makes a profit of 6 billion a year and he wants you collect from Leeds in 20 minutes and run at 85 MPH all the way to inverness why should you not charge £1.50 a mile. Why is it Ok for him to drive a Bentley but you can only have a 10 year old focus. Yes I will charge £75 a mile to trade but when a multimillionair books a job you dont think Im going to sit and beg for a 90p a mile no way Im getting whats mine and thats why Im still trading!

Spot on

Buddy ive just paid 95pplm s/v

Barnsley Shipping you seem to think rate discussions should be banned, then you join the discussion. Ridiculous! I am a massive fan of rate discussions as they benefit everyone, especially the newbies, whence from where we all came. Obviously I will not be sharing my end user rates with anyone. As my old controller at City Sprint used to say "happy days". Kind regards Tony

Yes, but. there is a debate about rates/how much should people charge about every six weeks, its your business, you should have a good idea what you should charge

Do you ever ring around the local competition as a "customer" to see what rates they charge? How do you know if your rates are competitive unless you ask? We can all stick our finger in the air (some keep theirs somewhere a tad warmer) and hope we have the right rates for our area, others do a bit more homework. When working out how much to charge to make a living you have to take into account whats going on around you.

And for some you'll soon discover that this isn't the job for you

If you put your rates up, but no one else does in your area then you're going to get less work unless you have particularly loyal customers... So you're forced to some extent to keep your rates lower than perhaps you'd like.

Nothing wrong with asking, and nothing wrong with answering.