I used to teach After Effects back in 1998 to some companies. Back then, there were no internet, no other teachers, not CD with tutorials. So it was hard for anyone to learn After Effects. I would charged for the traveling, preparation of the course based on their need, and teach for about 2 hours. Basically a full day of work. It was a great way to make them progress and to let them know about me and my skills. But make sure you'll explain what it takes to do it. In the end if you teach them 2 hours and it saves them several days of fast forwarding, it's worth for them.

Super practical. Thanks for the insight; makes a lot of sense!

I actually got a client this way. The Philadelphia Museum of Art asked me to teach a class to their internal art department about After Effects basics. Though their staff learned a lot, it was pretty obvious that they would need a lot more practice and training before they could handle professional jobs. But I got along really well with everyone, including the creative director, and then they started calling me regularly for work.

In terms of pricing, try to come up with an hourly rate that you think is fair. You'll probably spend a lot more time preparing the lecture than actually delivering it, so try and include that cost in your total hourly time.

If you have travel or material costs, they should reimburse you.

Good luck!

Agree 100%. You're being approached as an expert. You should charge way, way more than your normal rate. Things to account for when figuring out how much to charge: how many hours the presentation will be, any time it'll take you to prep for the event (i.e. if it takes you 4 hours to prep for a 2 hour event, then think of it as 6 hours, not 2), how many attendees you'll have, and gas mileage / travel time.

Look into what places like FMC charge for certified Adobe training in your area to get an idea what they'd potentially spend if you said no.

The story about Air (French band)'s drummer comes to mind: he introduced them to the Monome (control surface / interface). They loved it, and just started using a Monome to trigger drum samples instead of using a drummer.

He could just make it suuuper confusing, haha.

But.. I also agree it could be a good way to build a relationship and impress them. There's only so much they'll be able to learn in 2 hours and it may be a great time to sell yourself if that's something you are interested in.

"Or are they expecting to learn from you so they don't need to hire you?"

That statement seems pretty key. Which isn't necessarily wrong, but would influence my thoughts on whether or not I wanted to do it and what I would need in return.

Thanks for the heads up. Definitely interesting to try to price this kind of thing.

They might hire me for other stuff, but I can see them just trying to do things in-house as well once the designers have some kind of proficiency.

What would you get out of it besides money? Would they hire you in the future? Or are they expecting to learn from you so they don't need to hire you?

I think depending on if it was a one off or building a relationship would be how i price it.

That sounds like an interesting opportunity. I don't have any experience with that sort of thing, but off the top of my head I'd say charge at least 1 full day's worth of whaterver your rate is for that.

I haven't done anything like that before, but I would definitely charge more than your normal rate. Like a lot more. You aren't just providing two hours of work, you are training which is much different. You would also need time to prepare for this session as well. Sounds like it could be a fun opportunity, but just make sure you feel like you are being rewarded appropriately for this.