# Off Topic > The Water Cooler >  >  What's a fair Excel consulting fee?

## CAntosh

I've recently had a few work-adjacent Excel contracting/consulting opportunities bubble up, and I'm unsure how to proceed.  I'm open to the idea, but I have no idea what the going rate for paid Excel work is.  I don't have access to the commercial forum, so I don't even know what the going rate is on this site.

I'm sure that some of you have done paid, short-term work before, and I'm wondering what might be a fair hourly fee to float.  Assume that the deadlines are reasonable, the work is specialized but doable, and the offering company is a smallish governmental body or largish non-profit organization.  Any (rough) estimates?  Advice?

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## alansidman

When I lived in the Chicagoland area (more than 5 years ago), I could charge between $65 and $85 per hour.  You can always go down in price if you quote a price that the potential client balks at.  It is difficult to go up if you have sellers remorse after starting a project and finding it is more difficult than the original scope agreement.  Also, if travel is required, be sure to add that in as billable.  I usually did that at 50% of the hourly rate.  Scope creep often causes projects to go over budget so be sure to agree with the client what is expected.  Also, a fixed rate for a project with defined deliveries is another means and you don't then have to quote hourly rates but then be sure to agree on scope.  The fixed rate can be based upon an hourly rate and how long you think the project will take.  Hope this helps you.

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## CAntosh

Thanks for the feedback, Alan!  My plan is to negotiate a fixed fee, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a fair estimate might be.  They're basically looking for me to reproduce a project I developed for my organization, but using their region's data, so I have a pretty good idea of what's involved.  Scope creep worries me insofar as I don't want to be responsible for maintenance and data updates.  It's why I sent them some resources that I hope will enable them to develop it for themselves, but if not, I'll have to add a hard 'final' date to whatever agreement we work out.

Thanks again!

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## 6StringJazzer

I think I've been solving CS threads here for around $2.50 an hour  :EEK!:

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## alansidman

Jeff
That high!  I would have thought it was lower based upon what I've seen and the time I expect to put in to solving.
Alan

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## Kyle123

When Im doing fixed price work, my rule of thumb for pricing it is to double the hours I think it will take and add 10%. For maintenance, typically Ill charge a retainer for support or for some clients block of billable hours that can be used for support or further development that they can use as they wish.

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## CAntosh

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!  

Unfortunately, the county that inquired faded back into the ether.  I think the words "it won't be free" were enough to send them scurrying.  Nevertheless, when I'm rich and famous, you'll all be remembered fondly.

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## JapanDave

Unfortunately, anything in Excel is not worth getting processional help for. One reason why I went on to a new and more "Modern" programming language.

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## Richard Buttrey

I understand the sentiment Dave and from a purely technical pov I'm sure you're right.

However my experience is that Excel jobs don't come from enquiries by teccy types, they come from people in the usual sorts of departments like HR, Accounts, Marketing, Production, etc.. who just want a particular task they've been doing for ages speeded up and made simpler. In many case they have an Excel workbook and just want it extending and smartening up, they wouldn't appreciate a completely different look and feel.

In the 11 years I've been providing an Excel service I' don't think I can remember even one request that's come from an IT professional.

Everyone understands what Excel CAN do and since it's in front of them every day it's not suprising that it's the first road they start down. If I were to mention another programmming language and why from a technical pov it might be preferable, after their eyes had unglazed the response would probably be polite and 'let me think about it' and it's the last I'd hear.

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## JapanDave

@Richard Buttrey, Excel and VBA is dying. Maybe spreadsheets will continue for a while, there are many more apps that will take over Excel.

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## FlameRetired

> there are many more apps that will take over Excel.



Please tell me more, Dave.

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## alansidman

Dittos

Please tell me more, Dave.

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## JapanDave

So, by judging by the reactions both of you think that Excel is the best app on the market today?

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## rorya

For what?

It's hardly dying with half a billion users.

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## snb

The question: 'please tell me more' can't  be interpreted correctly as a description of a judgement; if you do so it's an indication of your way of thinking... :Wink:  

Asking a totally new question based on false assumptions can't be described as the best answer to the question.

That rises the question: why are you avoiding a proper answer ?

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## JapanDave

From what I can see, BI solutions are taking over. Excel is just becoming a spreadsheet that contains the data and other apps are doing all the work. VBA is has not advanced much at all over the last 10-15 years and I still have yet to find a good compiler that shows intuitive help in writing code. I am guessing that is b/c no one is investing in Excel VBA to be a big part of its future. Don't get me wrong, Excel the spreed sheet will always be an important part of any business, but the need for advanced level use is diminishing, as applications that can utilize machine learning etc, to process that data more effectively. Ultimately that is what I believe is the future of Excel. Just take a look at Microsoft's Power BI suite which includes Power Query, Power Map, Power Pivot etc that is already offering a new solution to data analytics.

EDIT, and I re-read my older post, I was mostly talking data analysis that was conventionally used inside Excel and not the app itself.
But hey, if I am wrong, I would love to hear it. But , I won't invest any more time in VBA as it seems the only reason it is still around is due to the fact that the user base is so big and that those users are reluctant to move to a newer language. It was a great start to understand programming and thank it for that, but I can't continue with something that is certain to die IMO. As someone who is still a Microsoft proponent, I would rather focus my time on TypeScript, C# and .net. Not to mention the headaches involved with Azure integration and lack of documentation. But that is just my opinion.

@snb, I was gauging the meaning of the comments. I was not sure what they were implying.

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## snb

Can you show an example of what can be accomplished in e.g. Powerquery that can't be done in VBA ?

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## Olly

> Can you show an example of what can be accomplished in e.g. Powerquery that can't be done in VBA ?



Query folding.

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## Richard Buttrey

> So, by judging by the reactions both of you think that Excel is the best app on the market today?



I don't think anyone is saying that at all. Horses for courses springs to mind.

Out of the probably hundreds of thousand of apps on the market why would anyone think Excel is at the pinnacle and could replace them all. The idea is surely ludicrous. 

Clearly though and self evidently without exception it is the best app for those who have Excel and are not comfortable with departing from it for whatever reason. God knows I've struggled in the past to persuade people that a relational DB like Access, which they had in their particular corporate environmnent would be preferable, so as I said earlier persuading them that a language they'd never heard of would be even better would receive a polite thanks but no thanks.

And you know what, I happen to agree with their stance. Just as politics is the art of the possible so too is advising clients.

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## JapanDave

> Can you show an example of what can be accomplished in e.g. Powerquery that can't be done in VBA ?



Are you suggesting that PowerQuery is no better than what VBA can accomplish? 





> I don't think anyone is saying that at all. Horses for courses springs to mind.
> 
> Out of the probably hundreds of thousand of apps on the market why would anyone think Excel is at the pinnacle and could replace them all. The idea is surely ludicrous. 
> 
> Clearly though and self evidently without exception it is the best app for those who have Excel and are not comfortable with departing from it for whatever reason. God knows I've struggled in the past to persuade people that a relational DB like Access, which they had in their particular corporate environmnent would be preferable, so as I said earlier persuading them that a language they'd never heard of would be even better would receive a polite thanks but no thanks.
> 
> And you know what, I happen to agree with their stance. Just as politics is the art of the possible so too is advising clients.



This answer is exactly why Excel and VBA are still in existence, purely b/c no-one in the Excel community wants to move forward. That is it, the only reason full stop. Combining other apps with Excel will give a much better result and Microsoft is aware of this, by introducing Microsoft's Power BI suite, this is just the beginning of them utilizing more powerful tools to crunch data.

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## rorya

> This answer is exactly why Excel and VBA are still in existence, purely b/c no-one in the Excel community wants to move forward.



I think that is nonsense.





> Combining other apps with Excel will give a much better result



The key being _combining_, not _replacing_.

If you know of an application that can do everything Excel can do, and do it better, do feel free to share.  :Smilie:

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## JapanDave

> I think that is nonsense.
> 
> The key being _combining_, not _replacing_.
> 
> If you know of an application that can do everything Excel can do, and do it better, do feel free to share.



Like I said, I can find hundreds of apps that can do many times better than what Excel can do, but not one app that can do what Excel can do as a whole. I never said Excel will be replaced (although it is a possibility) , but apps will be able to specific things better. As an all-rounder Excel is great, but fails to be able to convert that to specific product success in data analysis. If I want a employee management and scheduling app, I am not going to use Excel, I would use an app that was designing specifically for the purpose, but still many people will choose to use Excel to manage something like this and it is b/c they don't know better or they just use the tools they have at hand. The problem is that Excel is so good for doing anything and everything with mediocre results compared to apps that are designed specifically for the purpose they were designed for. And that is a big issue for people increasing productivity. Excel is very limited in what it can do vs what other ground up built apps can do. I will guarantee that what ever you want to do in Excel can be done better in a specific designed app, all Excel has to offer is flexibility to many things with that mediocre results, but I guess that is OK for many people who find it easy to use. Fortunately Microsoft is trying to alleviate this mediocrity by adding tools like Microsoft's Power BI suite externally to Excel and making it more relevant.

Like you said Rory, combining is the key here. Why would Microsoft want to lose its big cash cow with Excel?  There is no denying it,

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## snb

> Query folding.



I think I'll manage that in VBA using the ADODB,Recordset library





> Are you suggesting that PowerQuery is no better than what VBA can accomplish?



Is it your habit to create dialogues intérieurs based on your assumptions of the intention of someone who asks a question ?
Why don't you just answer the question ?
Please react digitally instead of analogously (Watzlawick te al.)

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## rorya

> Like I said, I can find hundreds of apps that can do many times better than what Excel can do, but not one app that can do what Excel can do as a whole. I never said Excel will be replaced (although it is a possibility)



Actually, that's pretty much exactly what  you said, and what I suspect most people are arguing against. Specifically, you said:





> Excel and VBA is dying. Maybe spreadsheets will continue for a while, there are many more apps that will take over Excel.



which I think by any normal interpretation is you saying it will be replaced.





> but apps will be able to specific things better. As an all-rounder Excel is great, but fails to be able to convert that to specific product success in data analysis.



Yes, of course you can buy purpose-built tools that will be better for one specific case. (though I'm not sure what criteria you have for "product success" that you don't think Excel has met. I think it's made quite a lot of money for Microsoft) In the real world, one product that can cover a number of bases well (which Excel can, if you know what you're doing) is probably going to beat a number of task-specific ones.





> I will guarantee that what ever you want to do in Excel can be done better in a specific designed app



Well, again, yeah. But most people have to compromise somewhere. I'd love to have a separate car for every type of journey I might ever need to make but that's just not practical, so I'll take the best all-rounder. That doesn't necessarily have to be mediocre.

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## Kyle123

> Query folding.



Slightly off topic:
Ironically, it's the lack of control over query folding that made me abandon PowerQuery - one cannot force query folding and it can behave oddly. I can inner join a table and that gets folded, yet outer join and it pulls the both tables to the client. :shrugs:

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## JapanDave

> I think I'll manage that in VBA using the ADODB,Recordset library
> 
> Is it your habit to create dialogues intérieurs based on your assumptions of the intention of someone who asks a question ?
> Why don't you just answer the question ?
> Please react digitally instead of analogously (Watzlawick te al.)



Absolutely, especially when the question is inferring something in the guise of a question. Firstly ,VBA and the ADODB,Recordset library is not going to be able process huge amounts of data, it will error out and fail. VBA is notorious for this.

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## snb

The programmer's proficiency might be more decisive.

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## JapanDave

> Actually, that's pretty much exactly what  you said, and what I suspect most people are arguing against. Specifically, you said:
> which I think by any normal interpretation is you saying it will be replaced.



Excel as we know it now will disappear. If you think it won't you are kidding yourself. VBA functionality will be a non-issue, maybe they will replace it with Python, who knows. But it will not be what everyone is used to now. That is what I am saying, it may have the same name , but it will be a completely different style of app that will be combined with other apps that add functionality to it..





> Yes, of course you can buy purpose-built tools that will be better for one specific case. (though I'm not sure what criteria you have for "product success" that you don't think Excel has met. I think it's made quite a lot of money for Microsoft) In the real world, one product that can cover a number of bases well (which Excel can, if you know what you're doing) is probably going to beat a number of task-specific ones.
> 
> Well, again, yeah. But most people have to compromise somewhere. I'd love to have a separate car for every type of journey I might ever need to make but that's just not practical, so I'll take the best all-rounder. That doesn't necessarily have to be mediocre.



I guess that is why the SUV was made, to serve all those circumstances that could possible need an all-round vehicle and yes, they are mediocre. A specific 4X4 will kill a all-round SUV for off-road applications. And yes a sedan will kill a SUV for on-road applications. Your argument is a non-issue, why would try to suggest that an all-round product is just as good? So yeah, it may not be mediocre when viewed as a whole, but compared to the specialists it is.  Excel is exactly the same as this analogy, thanks for making it so clear.

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## JapanDave

> The programmer's proficiency might be more decisive.



Meaning what? That the programmer is able to overcome inherent disadvantages that the programming language has? I would love to meet this guy.

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## CK76

I doubt, that Excel or VBA will become obsolete anytime soon  :Wink: 

As long as there's accountants crunching numbers, basic spreadsheet will be well and alive. Not all of us are programmers  :Wink: 

While PQ and PowerPivot are great tool, it can't be used for OLE automation.
Unless Java/Python is integrated to replace that functionality, there will be place for VBA in Excel application.

As well, certain transformations can be done much faster in VBA than in PQ and slightly more secure. 
PQ as currently stands, has no security layer other than connection level security.

Excel's strength is in it's flexibility and ease of use. Though it may frustrate many of us with it's flexibility (such as merged range), this has helped MS gain far wider user base than otherwise.

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## JapanDave

> I doubt, that Excel or VBA will become obsolete anytime soon 
> 
> As long as there's accountants crunching numbers, basic spreadsheet will be well and alive. Not all of us are programmers 
> 
> While PQ and PowerPivot are great tool, it can't be used for OLE automation.
> Unless Java/Python is integrated to replace that functionality, there will be place for VBA in Excel application.
> 
> As well, certain transformations can be done much faster in VBA than in PQ and slightly more secure. 
> PQ as currently stands, has no security layer other than connection level security.
> ...



What , security and Excel VBA is an oxymoron.

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## CK76

I know. All I'm saying is that PQ is worse than VBA at this point  :Wink:

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## FlameRetired

> So, by judging by the reactions both of you think that Excel is the best app on the market today?



Dave that wasn't the point of my question at all. It's just me being open and inquisitive.

I was just hoping you would fill me/us in on some details ... like what's up and coming ... that could be an alternative to the spreadsheet tool (remarkable invention that it is)? That's all.

Judging from the responses I should have read the label "Can 'o' worms. Do not open."  :EEK!:  LOL Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

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## CAntosh

So we're all agreed, then?  $70/hr. until the machines rise against us?

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## CK76

About that for Chicago yes. You can check UpWork and other freelance site for current market range in your area. It's expensive there  :Wink:  Most on my area are around $50 USD range.

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## CAntosh

Haha, at this stage, I'm only kidding.  I'm not actively looking for side gigs; I just wanted to have an answer in case a vendor inquired.  It hadn't dawned on me to search for/through freelance sites, though, so thanks for that!

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## JapanDave

> Dave that wasn't the point of my question at all. It's just me being open and inquisitive.
> 
> I was just hoping you would fill me/us in on some details ... like what's up and coming ... that could be an alternative to the spreadsheet tool (remarkable invention that it is)? That's all.
> 
> Judging from the responses I should have read the label "Can 'o' worms. Do not open."  LOL Didn't mean to hijack the thread.



No, I should be the one apologizing, I didn't mean to hijack the thread.
I figured that people would have some strong opinions. Like I said earlier, Excel has been a great stepping stone and I can't thank it enough for what it has taught me, but the way things are moving I don't see it as an essential tool for business in the future. Again, that is my opinion only and I am not trying to start anything.

And just to add, I have the utter most respect for members like Rory, SNB and other commenting and it was not my intention to undermine that. I just can't see the future of a programming language that has not changed for the last 10 years. VBA 6.5 is the last time it was updated with new features and Microsoft dose not look like it will put any more resources into it either, even though it is VBA 7.1 at the moment.

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## Norie

Python GUI anyone?

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## snb

I used VBA to create an acceptable GUI to Python; see http://www.snb-vba.eu/VBA_Python_en.html

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## Norie

snb

Thanks, I'll take a look at that. :Smilie: 

I've been tinkering with Tkinter for creating GUIs in Python but it's a slow process, not only the developing but the loading as well. :Smilie:

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## JapanDave

> I used VBA to create an acceptable GUI to Python; see http://www.snb-vba.eu/VBA_Python_en.html



Just checked it out, interesting stuff. Not a fan of Python fan due to is slowness and run-time error possibilities, but really interesting stuff.

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## Richard Buttrey

> I used VBA to create an acceptable GUI to Python; see http://www.snb-vba.eu/VBA_Python_en.html



My interest has been piqued and I'm intrigued. I'm not a programmer by nature although over the years I've built some knowledge of VBA and I have no knowledge about Python whatsoever, but purely out  of interest I'd like to see what it's all about. 

I see I can download Python Release 3.7.1 for Windows but would have no idea what to do next. Can you point me to an idiot's, (and by that I mean a simple idiot's) Python Introductory guide which can lead someone step by step through some examples?

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## snb

When I started Python I felt thrown back into the sixties of the DOS era. (before any GUI was available).

I will ftp some books on my website; just a sec please.

If you send me a PM I can provide a link.

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## buran

> Python GUI anyone?



what you mean by this question?
there a plenty of python GUI frameworks and tkinter is not one that I would recommend. For some frameworks there are GUI designer/builders

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## buran

> Can you point me to an idiot's, (and by that I mean a simple idiot's) Python Introductory guide which can lead someone step by step through some examples?



what about the official tutorial https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html

https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/Programmers

also a list of free python resources to choose from
https://python-forum.io/Thread-A-Lis...thon-Resources

https://books.goalkicker.com/PythonBook/

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## rorya

> I just can't see the future of a programming language that has not changed for the last 10 years.



Now that I _do_ agree with - although it will take a *long* time for VBA to die (if it does). MS has no interest in VBA at all and no plans, as far as I know, to do anything with it beyond adding new OM features - presumably just until Javascript has caught up to a reasonable degree. Not bright, in my opinion, but what do I know.

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## Neuner

This is an interesting thread and something I've been pondering.  

We utilize Excel heavily in our construction industry and as I'm trying to maintain a Contact list (have a thread started about this but can't post links yet), I'm wondering if it is the best route?  This list is critical to our operation but still, only a database.  We want it tailored to our needs and customizable and why we've naturally leaned toward Excel.  Is there something else that would be better?  Should we hire a local consultant?

Way back when, in college, I briefly learned Microsoft Access and Fortran.  Use to program in Basic for fun when I was young but have since forgotten a lot.  Access seemed to be what a lot were using but it was very burdening in memory and usage.  Other than those ancient uses, I have no idea.

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## 6StringJazzer

> This list is critical to our operation but still, only a database.  We want it tailored to our needs and customizable and why we've naturally leaned toward Excel.  Is there something else that would be better?  Should we hire a local consultant?



You might want to start a separate thread about this since it is so far removed from the original topic of this thread. If you do, describe what functionality you would want besides just a database. Who are all the types of people who would use it? What would they do with it? That is, who inputs data, who needs reports, who updates data, what kind of things happen that would trigger an update of data? A local consultant might be a good idea if you have one, although I think this could be done remotely pretty effectively. If you are a big company with a lot of $$ you might want to use an online CRM tool like SalesForce or something else designed specifically for this kind of thing.

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