The $73-an-hour surprise
Divide what each client pays by every hour they actually consume, and the roster rarely looks the way it feels. One calculation, twenty minutes, new eyes.
There's a calculation that rearranges an owner's mental ranking of their clients in about twenty minutes: effective hourly rate, per client. Take everything a client paid last quarter and divide by every hour they consumed — including the rework, the “quick calls,” the invoices that needed chasing, and the Sunday-night emails that somehow became normal.
A real-shaped example. A $4,000-a-month retainer client looks like the best account on the books. Counted honestly — three revision rounds, the weekly “alignment” call — they consume 55 hours a month. That's $73 an hour, against a blended $120 across the rest of the roster. The biggest client turns out to be the cheapest client, occupying capacity that could serve two ordinary accounts at full rate. And there's a quieter cost the spreadsheet misses: teams tend to lose their best people over an account like this before they lose them over money.
What happens next is the owner's call — sometimes the relationship gets repriced, sometimes rescoped, sometimes ended. The owners who do end one tend to follow the same quiet playbook:
- Thirty days' written notice, two sentences. “We're refocusing the practice and won't be able to serve you after September 30. We'll finish everything in flight and hand over cleanly.” No grievance list — the moment reasons are listed, a negotiation has been opened.
- A referral to someone who genuinely fits them better. It's classy, and it's usually true.
- A polite pass on the counter-offer. More money was never the problem. The 55 hours were.
The conventional caution says never walk away from revenue in a slow economy. The counter-view is worth sitting with: a slow economy is exactly when capacity needs to point at winnable, profitable work — not rented out at $73 an hour.
Filed under Strategy & the Owner's Seat