Your number
$1,400
Your rate card
- Day rate$1,300 per day
- Hourlyfor anything that does not fit a day$175 per hour
- A model or forecast$15,750 per project
- Monthly retainer$14,850 per month
What to charge for each thing (4)
- Model build$13,500 each
- Forecasting$6,750 each
- A/B test design and readout$2,925 each
- Data pipeline$8,550 each
US rates for data scientist / ml engineers at your level, adjusted for your market. What you last got wins.
For 8 hours at $175, the quote is $1,400.
To take home $85,000 after $9,000 of costs and 30% tax you need to bill $134,286 a year. At 24 billable hours a week for 47 weeks that is $125 an hour, $950 a day. Anything under that is a pay cut you did not agree to.
Data scientists at your level in your market day at about $1,300 ($900 to $2,000 in New York and LA). Your income math lands under that, so the market number is the one to quote; the gap is a raise you are owed.
A model or forecast runs $5,000 to $30,000 and takes about 80 hours of your time; at your hourly that is $14,000. The number is the higher of the two, because the client is buying the outcome, not the hours.
A retainer is the month, not the hours: a set scope, paid up front on the 1st. It is priced about 20% under the same work bought one at a time, in exchange for the certainty; three months minimum, or it is not a retainer.