Should I give a discount for block bookings?

stephaniet17

New Member
I've recently been in contact with a new potential client where it sounds like the work will be great. I would be working onsite and have quoted my daily rate. The client has asked if I would be willing to consider discounts for block bookings, say a week and a month. I personally feel happy to consider this for the assurance I will have of a set number of days of work. I just wondered what other people's opinions were and how much of a discount you think is reasonable to give percentage wise?

Thanks in advance.
 
Be careful giving discounts, put a disclaimer of say something like 10% discount up to the value of £1000, so that way after £1000 pounds they get their discount and you are no longer obliged to give a discount after this time. Also make sure it's on block bookings of more than 3 consecutive days in one working week etc.
 
Generally speaking your day rate will be a discount on your hourly rate anyway so I personally would be reluctant to discount that again unless its a deal breaker.
 
Generally speaking your day rate will be a discount on your hourly rate anyway so I personally would be reluctant to discount that again unless its a deal breaker.

Good point. I'd offer the discount if they were guaranteeing the work, i.e. they pay you for a full-week even if the work only amounts to 3 days. This way you're not losing out if they don't come through with the workload but you've turned other clients down on the premise of a block of time being needed.

A lot of agencies like to book you in for two weeks so they've got you on call and their needs are covered, but from experience they often over-estimate how long they'll need you for.
 
Generally speaking your day rate will be a discount on your hourly rate anyway so I personally would be reluctant to discount that again unless its a deal breaker.

Exactly this. My day rate is basically 8 hours of my hourly rate rounded down, and the same for day - week rate & week - month rate. If you have something similar in place with your rates, I wouldn't reduce them with any further discounts.
 
There's no difference between my hourly and daily rate - I just multiply my hourly rate by 7.5 and that's it. Whenever I negotiate a discount on block bookings, I usually offer five per cent and allow them to beat me up to ten although everything depends heavily on the number of hours on offer.
 
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