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I manage a Single Cell Sequencing Core (all 10X Genomics for now) and we are struggling with a few aspects of setting fees for bioinformatics analysis. A little background-I started here a little over a year ago, and we have an hourly analysis rate that incorporates both analyst time and computing time. There were some lapses in charging for things like basic alignment and consultation time (1hr+ weekly meetings with one user for example). I'd like to start setting reasonable expectations with users that often have very different levels of knowledge and analysis needs.

1. How do you set expectations with time/charges for projects?
2. Do you charge by time, or have set charges for certain routine processes like building a reference genome/basic alignment?
3. How many consultations are included (preliminary, post-analysis, etc.)? And do you charge fees for extra consultations mid-project?

Thanks

We have 2 set fees for our most common analysis packages.  The "basic" package is basically running through Cell/Space Ranger.  The "advanced" package is running through Seurat - annotating clusters, differential expression, ambient RNA removal (if needed), and plotting up to 30 genes.  Anything beyond that we charge by the hour.  I've never thought about consults, but usually when I set fees I plan for the hours I think it will take and then bump it up a couple hours to hopefully account for consults, notes, etc.  There are certainly some customers who like to push the limits so we're currently working on more tightly defining what is/isn't included.

I manage a Single Cell Sequencing Core (all 10X Genomics for now) and we are struggling with a few aspects of setting fees for bioinformatics analysis. A little background-I started here a little over a year ago, and we have an hourly analysis rate that incorporates both analyst time and computing time. There were some lapses in charging for things like basic alignment and consultation time (1hr+ weekly meetings with one user for example). I'd like to start setting reasonable expectations with users that often have very different levels of knowledge and analysis needs.

1. How do you set expectations with time/charges for projects?
2. Do you charge by time, or have set charges for certain routine processes like building a reference genome/basic alignment?
3. How many consultations are included (preliminary, post-analysis, etc.)? And do you charge fees for extra consultations mid-project?

Thanks

We have 2 set fees for our most common analysis packages.  The "basic" package is basically running through Cell/Space Ranger.  The "advanced" package is running through Seurat - annotating clusters, differential expression, ambient RNA removal (if needed), and plotting up to 30 genes.  Anything beyond that we charge by the hour.  I've never thought about consults, but usually when I set fees I plan for the hours I think it will take and then bump it up a couple hours to hopefully account for consults, notes, etc.  There are certainly some customers who like to push the limits so we're currently working on more tightly defining what is/isn't included.

I manage a Single Cell Sequencing Core (all 10X Genomics for now) and we are struggling with a few aspects of setting fees for bioinformatics analysis. A little background-I started here a little over a year ago, and we have an hourly analysis rate that incorporates both analyst time and computing time. There were some lapses in charging for things like basic alignment and consultation time (1hr+ weekly meetings with one user for example). I'd like to start setting reasonable expectations with users that often have very different levels of knowledge and analysis needs.

1. How do you set expectations with time/charges for projects?
2. Do you charge by time, or have set charges for certain routine processes like building a reference genome/basic alignment?
3. How many consultations are included (preliminary, post-analysis, etc.)? And do you charge fees for extra consultations mid-project?

Thanks

How do you charge for computing time? We're currently charging 1/4 time (1hr charge for every 4hrs), I'm not sure where that decision came from. I'm curious to hear what others are doing, and if it's based on how many jobs can run at one time. 

We have 2 set fees for our most common analysis packages.  The "basic" package is basically running through Cell/Space Ranger.  The "advanced" package is running through Seurat - annotating clusters, differential expression, ambient RNA removal (if needed), and plotting up to 30 genes.  Anything beyond that we charge by the hour.  I've never thought about consults, but usually when I set fees I plan for the hours I think it will take and then bump it up a couple hours to hopefully account for consults, notes, etc.  There are certainly some customers who like to push the limits so we're currently working on more tightly defining what is/isn't included.

I manage a Single Cell Sequencing Core (all 10X Genomics for now) and we are struggling with a few aspects of setting fees for bioinformatics analysis. A little background-I started here a little over a year ago, and we have an hourly analysis rate that incorporates both analyst time and computing time. There were some lapses in charging for things like basic alignment and consultation time (1hr+ weekly meetings with one user for example). I'd like to start setting reasonable expectations with users that often have very different levels of knowledge and analysis needs.

1. How do you set expectations with time/charges for projects?
2. Do you charge by time, or have set charges for certain routine processes like building a reference genome/basic alignment?
3. How many consultations are included (preliminary, post-analysis, etc.)? And do you charge fees for extra consultations mid-project?

Thanks