Instructors charging mileage?

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turnbuckle

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Very very very good instructor, 70 mile round trip, three clients in same area, 40 quid an hour + 15 quid mileage.

Am I being stingy thinking mileage is pushing it or is instructor being a bit ambitious?

Honest views please.
 
No I don't think mileage is pushing it.
I presume the 15 quid is each client ie 45 quid total mileage and the instructor is a self-employed freelancer.
If the round-trip is about 70 miles then depending upon the roads will be an extra 1.5/ 2 hours of their day travelling so cannot spend that time teaching elsewhere.
 
catkin said:
No I don't think mileage is pushing it.
I presume the 15 quid is each client ie 45 quid total mileage and the instructor is a self-employed freelancer.
If the round-trip is about 70 miles then depending upon the roads will be an extra 1.5/ 2 hours of their day travelling so cannot spend that time teaching elsewhere.
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Agreed
I would expect to pay travel on top of the normal hourly rate for a journey of that length, unless it was a full day clinic in which case it often gets parcelled up as an increased hourly rate anyway! ;)
 
Sounds fair to me - the roads are a nightmare and 70 miles means about 1.5 hours of travelling which is a chunk out of a day, plus the cost of fuel and wear and tear, maybe you could team up with some others on the yard and split the milage costs and have a mini clinic?
 
turnbuckle said:
Very very very good instructor, 70 mile round trip, three clients in same area, 40 quid an hour + 15 quid mileage.

Am I being stingy thinking mileage is pushing it or is instructor being a bit ambitious?

Honest views please.
Click to expand...

To give you an analogy my horse box guy charges X amount for labour per hour and a mileage charge-think its totally fair, all the time someone is travelling they're not earning. Agree with the clinic thing too-its usually all added in.
 
At 40p a mile, that's £28 quid plus the travel time so it's fair but a large percentage of the overall cost. Anyway the 3 of you could be in one place to reduce the cost?
 
Before I gave up teaching I gave a mileage for free (I think it was 25 miles round trip) then travelled £5 for every extra 10 miles.

If there were 2 clients at the same premises then that would be 50 miles for free. For 3 clients at the same yard it was 75 miles free, etc.

I also charged £40 an hour.

I set this pricing as this was the rate when I did not mind where I went to.

For example, for a one hour lesson at a relatively local venue it would be 2 hours by the time I had travelled, done gates etc, greeted the client, had the lesson, chit chat, book another, travel home, so £20 an hour plus a small amount of petrol.

For a single person on a 75 mile round trip it would be potentially 4 hours by the time I had accounted for traffic as well as the above, so an extra £25, total £65 fee. So that would be less than £20 an hour, plus large petrol costs, but then a lot of it would be in my comfy car chatting on the hands free or listening to the radio. But then, I would also have to account for wear and tear on the vehicle, so it could not really be cheaper.

I did not want to charge any more for travelling as it was not the clients' fault that I lived a way away, but then it was not mine either! So, I set the fee where I didn't mind where I travelled. Besides, a lot of people who were far away soon recruited other people on the same yard to share costs.

You say you are all in the same area but not at the same yard. I did try to implement the discount for that, but then I found that if one person dropped out I would have to increase the price for the others and this then caused discontent. It was simpler to price a lesson individually, then if I had a few in the same area I could unofficially discount, but I did not have to try to co-ordinate people off separate yards. When people are on the same yard they can sort out their lessons: with people on separate yards, trying to co-ordinate could take more of my time than travelling - as they did not co-ordinate amongst themselves then inform me of what they wanted, it would be me trying to negotiate between them, which was nigh on impossible! I have done it since for groups of friends, but for the discount they have to be geographically close as well as actual friends so someone took responsibility for all the to-ing and fro-ing and seeing if everyone was happy with the resultant price for every eventuality, just letting me know where and when I was required. If I had to do the organisation for separate yards I just charged as if it were a single lesson, then it would be a nice surprise for all of us if I had more in the area.

I guess I lost some business that way, but life is too short and I value my time.

Also, £20 an hour sounds a lot, but when freelancing it is also to cover any down time, unlike a wage. It has to pay pension, sick pay, holiday pay, time to do business books, insurance, registration, CPD, DBS, First Aid, advertising, clothing, etc etc etc.

So, the short version is - yes it seems reasonable!
 
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My instructor is £35 an hour if I go to her, but £60 if she has to come to me as its a 40min journey to me. I think its more than fair. Obviously I'd be delighted if she didnt charge travel but I just accept that it has to be paid and it seems a more than fair amount.
 
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