Getting a home based work is a challenging task for many aspirants. If ‘how to get work?’ is a question that troubles all, a few that have received offers raise the question ‘Is my pay rate reasonable?’

Though several factors influence the pay rates, the key factors are the nature of the work, your location and the employer’s, duration of work, your performance, and the personality of the employer.

What I write here applies to Indian employer and worker. If the employer is from a developed country, the rates would certainly be different.
You are paid for the work you do. All other factors such as your age, experience, education, social status or achievements are irrelevant. When you buy a gold necklace, you pay for the value of the gold plus some margin for the design, reputation and the workmanship – not for the education of the goldsmith or his experience. The same rules applies to home based work.

Don’t compare your rates with ‘market’ rate of similar professionals that work in an organized sector. There is no such thing as market rate for home based Internet work.

A copy editor with 3-4 years of experience in Chennai or Bangalore earns anywhere between Rs.10,000 to Rs.16,000. They work for 10-12 hours a day, even though the contract is for 8 hours a day. Add to this number, the time they spend in preparing to go to office and travel. They spend easily 14 hours a day and work for 6 days a week He works for around 250 hours a month, earns Rs.13,000 and hence the hourly rate is Rs.50.

How much do you think you will get paid for such work? Rs.20 to Rs.25 should be the offer rate to you. If you work for 250 hours, you will make Rs,5,000 to Rs.7,000 at this rate. Should you get anything more than this figure, you are lucky.

If you don’t have special skills or ‘right foreign contacts’ and think the rate is low, forget about home based work. You must become an entrepreneur, start a website and work hard to earn truckloads of money.

Some people talk to their friends, compare the rates with what the highly paid professionals earn in top-notch company and turn down the offers complaining that the rate is low. If you don’t accept the offer it, millions from India, China and Philippines are waiting to grab that offer.

Please be prepared to face the reality. A fully qualified bright new software engineer gets a pay of Rs.18,000 in most big software companies. He works for long hours, easily more than 12 and of course off the record, under strict supervision. His hourly rate is just Rs.70 for his programming knowledge. Can you expect to earn anything more than what this programmer earns by just correcting spelling mistakes?

Think from employer’s point of view. Why should he pay Rs.10,000 or Rs. 20,000 to a home based worker? For the same amount can’t he hire fully qualified people on monthly basis and make them work right under his nose? He comes to you because he wants to cut down his costs by at least 50%.

The argument that you are providing a computer and an Internet connection is not valid. Did you buy your computer and an Internet connection because of an employer had made an offer? If there is no offer, will you sell your system and take off the Internet connection? No.

Think about your situation. You want to earn working from the comfort of your home. You are not able to go for a job because of social, health or other reasons. Then how do you decide on your rate? Find out the maximum amount that you can earn as salary through a full-time employment- perhaps Rs.10,000. Divide it by the number of hours people work in a month. Employees in private sector work for more than 200 hours a month. So the maximum you can expect is Rs.50. However, if you get 50%-60% of Rs.50, you must take it as a reasonable offer. As you gain experience, you will know how your employer earns money and this priceless knowledge may help you make more money through your own ventures. The employers that offer such realistic rates are trustworthy and generally never fail to pay you for your work. That is important.

Any agent that promises you high rate like Rs.1000+ a day will most likely not pay you a Paise. In such cases they actually take money from you to prove the adage that a fool and his money are parted soon.