Consulting Fees

Terrapane prides itself on being open with its customers about the cost of doing business with China. In most cases, we are able to help meet our customers' objectives at reducing costs, and if it is not possible or will be unlikely, we explain why at the outset of our conversations.

Equally important, we make every effort to keep our costs to you as low as possible. For most consulting work, we charge a flat hourly rate that is comparable to the hourly rate an employer might pay for a skilled employee. More importantly, since the tasks we undertake we do every single day, we can usually get things done in less time. What this means is that hiring Terrapane might actually be cheaper than hiring a full-time or part-time employee to do the same work.

With Terrapane, you never pay commission on imported products. When we help import products, we understand our job is to help you find a reliable partner and get the best price. The prices we report to our customers are never padded with commission or other hidden fees.

Because we undertake a wide range of projects, it is not possible to enumerate the fees associated with every kind of project. Nonetheless, below you will find the fees for the more common types of work we do. If you have any further questions or want a quotation for a project that does not seem to fit the descriptions below, please feel free to contact us.

Deposit

We require a $500 deposit to start any hourly project or $1,000 to start any full-time project. A deposit indicates our customers' earnest desire to work with us on engagements in China. Any deposit balance remaining will be returned at the completion of the project.

Hourly Projects

Most hourly projects, which may include sourcing products, working with manufacturers to develop new products, translating documents, or performing others tasks which do not require the engagement of a resource on a full-time basis are billed at an hourly rate of $85 per hour, excluding travel-associated costs.

We only bill for the hours engaged in a project. This means that if we make a 15-minute phone call to follow-up on a shipment, we bill only for fifteen minutes. We log time in 5-minute increments and do not charge for work that requires less than 5 minutes in any given day.

All communication costs between the United States and China are included in this hourly rate.

For hourly projects, we impose no requirements for a project duration or minimum number of hours. Projects may be cancelled for any reason at any time. The only obligation would be the fee for the hours of service performed up to the point of cancellation.

Any project that requires more than an average of 20 hours per week is a candidate to be classified as a full-time project. If this is the case, we will transition the project to full-time status if it makes sense, which should result in a lower monthly cost.

Full-Time Projects

A full-time project is one that requires one or more full-time Terrapane resources. For many such projects, we charge $6,000 per month per U.S.-based full-time equivalent (FTE) and $2,000 per month per China-based FTE. We will recommend the number of FTEs required for any given project and work with our customers to set proper expectations and objectives. Since some projects require specialized talent, a final quotation for services cannot be provided until after the scope and requirements of the project are fully understood.

Travel Fees

For hourly projects, we will travel if requested to visit manufacturers, perform product inspection, or perform other tasks. For all such travel, there is a per diem fee of $500 plus actual travel expenses, which includes airfare, taxi, subway, train, and lodging costs.

For full-time projects, where there are one or more Terrapane resources engaged in a project full-time, the cost for travel would include actual travel expenses, including airfare, taxi, subway, train, and lodging costs, plus a $60 per diem for meals and incidentals. No additional fee would be imposed for staff time, as it would be included in our project contract.

In all cases, travel must always be approved by our customers in advance of booking any trips. Further, there must be clearly stated objectives associated with any travel request.

Representative Offices in China

A representative office is one wherein a U.S. company employees people in China in order to oversee manufacturing or help facilitate business between the U.S. company and Chinese partners. It is not a sales office. We charge $3,000 to handle all necessary documentation to open the representative office, including translation of documents into Chinese. The government will also charge fees, which vary from city to city, but are generally on the order of $100. In any case, any government-imposed charges are the responsibility of the client. Before we take on projects of this type, we will first check on current fees and report back with a formal quotation. The reason is that government fees change and we do not want anybody to be caught off-guard.

Depending on the location of the representative office, travel may be required and will be charged according to the "Hourly Projects" terms.

If office space has not been selected, we can engage with real estate agencies to help procure office space. Time required to engage with such agencies is billed at an hourly rate (see above) separately from the cost of performing the other tasks associated with opening a representative office.

Sales Offices in China

Opening a sales office or other kind of office wherein one is actively engaged in business in China requires different fees based on the type of business, the type of office, location, etc. We will quote a price as requested.

Recruiting

We are not a recruiting agency, but we work with recruiters to find qualified people. That said, we have qualified members of our team who hold MBAs and who have worked for U.S. firms in human resources, so we do have experience in conducting interviews for senior management and lower-level positions. We will provide a quotation as services are requested.