How Much to Charge Clients for Travel Time

This article first appeared on Invoala. There isn't one universal number. The workable answer is that you charge travel time at your normal hourly rate whenever the trip is made specifically for one client and you can't do other paid work while you're in transit — and you use a reduced rate, commonly half, only for long stretches where you're just sitting in a seat. Your daily commute is not billable, and a trip you'd make anyway is not billable. Everything else comes down to a rate you choose in advance and write down before the job starts.