How to set your rates
Your rates decide what each party is invoiced when a case is booked through your link. The one thing worth understanding before you type a number is that a fixed day rate is the total for the case, not the amount one attorney pays.
Rates live on Profile → Pricing, in a panel headed Rates.
The multi-party rule, first
Renee Castellano's full-day rate is $16,000. Bramwell v. Northline Freight Systems has two parties, so each attorney is invoiced $8,000.
How the total is divided is a choice you make once, on the same tab under Set Pricing By Party Count:
- Equally Split Between All Parties — the total is divided by the number of paying parties. Three parties on a $16,000 full day pay $5,333.34, $5,333.33 and $5,333.33.
- 50% Split by Side (Plaintiff / Defendant) — each side owes half, and that half is then shared among the parties on that side. Two plaintiffs and one defendant on a $16,000 full day pay $4,000, $4,000 and $8,000.
Whichever you pick is stamped onto each case when it's booked. It's also why adding or removing a party changes what everyone else pays — see How to add a party to a case.
1Choose a billing type
Billing Type is either Fixed Rate or Hourly Rate. It sets how your booking link quotes and what gets invoiced when a case is booked.
2Fixed rate: half day and full day
Fill in Half-day and Full-day. These are the two figures shown on your booking link, and each is a case total.
The booking page divides them at the point the invoices are raised, not on the rate card — so the card shows $16,000 and the invoices come out at $8,000 each. The heading above that card is text your account can customise, so don't rely on it to tell you whether a figure is a total or a per-party amount. The figures under Rates on this screen are always case totals.
3Hourly rate
With Hourly selected you set an Hourly Rate and a Deposit. The deposit is what's invoiced at booking; actual time is billed afterwards from the case page. See How to create an additional invoice.
Rate Display controls only what the booking page shows: Total Rate prints your hourly rate as entered, Per Party divides it by the party count for display. It changes nothing about what is invoiced.
4Party tiers, if you price by party count
Set Pricing By Party Count, below Rates, is where you add tiers. Each tier is a party count — shown as, say, "3+" — with its own Billing Type and its own Hourly Rate, Half-day Rate and Full-day Rate.
A case picks the highest tier whose party count is less than or equal to the number of parties on the case. A case with four parties uses your "3+" tier if you have no "4+".
5The admin fee
Scale's admin fee is set on your account as an amount and a payer:
- Paid by the client — the fee is added to each party's invoice as its own line item, on top of their share of the mediation fee.
- Paid by the mediator — it doesn't appear on the invoice. It comes out of what you receive.
The label on that line item is editable under Invoice Admin Fee Label on the same tab.
The fee is worked out per party, and it's always rounded to a whole dollar, so a percentage fee applied to a fractional split never produces cents.
6Who pays the card processing fee
Also on this tab: Pay By Client or Pay By Mediator. Pay By Client adds the card processing fee to the invoice total. Parties who pay by bank transfer are never charged it either way.
What's next
- Check the rate card on your own booking link reads the way you expect
- How your booking link works