Before you start offering IT audits, you may have questions about how to price them. IT audit prices should be based on your rate, but you should offer a discount just to get a foot in the door.
Your Hourly Rate Is Your Guide
In order to create your price for IT audits, you need to take your hourly billing rate and guess you will spend two or three hours at the site. You will probably spend another hour back in your shop writing up reports for the IT audits and creating an estimate. Figure out what you will need to charge clients for IT audits in this manner.
For example, if for basic work in the field you charge $95 per hour, and you guess that between time spent at the client's business gathering information for IT audits, and a question/answer session afterwards you spend five hours, you are at a little bit under $500. To start the relationship off on a good note, round the price down to provide a discount.
Don't Bill The Entire Amount
The purpose of IT audits is to get your foot in the door and create a basis for a longer term relationship. Therefore, you don't need to charge full rates for IT audits, or bill by the hour. Your purpose is to make them comfortable so they feel they can afford your services in the future. An IT audit will help you discover your prospect's biggest issues and help them organize and make sense of what he needs to address.
Coming up with well thought-out recommendations on first steps, what they will cost and when the work can be scheduled will take a couple hours. You shouldn't give expertise away for free, but you also shouldn't be looking to see regular rates on IT audits.
Discount!
Your greatest objective in IT audits is to get clients to open up their pockets and make a commitment to buy your services. Even if you don't recover more than 50 to 75 percent of your regular fees, you can count it as part of the cost of sales. A typical range for IT audits falls somewhere between $250 and $350. If you want to take a more commanding approach, $199 to $200 is very competitive. The idea is to make the price fixed, and get that commitment from the prospect to ensure he is willing and able to spend money on IT audits and potentially future services.
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