Hourly rate

What is an hourly rate?

An hourly rate (Dutch: uurtarief) is, in sex work, the price you pay per hour, usually with a minimum duration. You pay for the time and the attention, not per act. For a longer appointment the price per hour is often lower, and an appointment at your place usually costs more than at the sex worker’s.

How an hourly rate is built up

Almost always the price is set in advance and stated openly. In their study Face Value, Trevon Logan and Manisha Shah describe how male escorts announce their hourly price publicly, and how showing the price up front keeps money out of the negotiation during contact. What someone shows in the ad, down to a face photo as a sign of reliability, connects to how high that rate is.

The build-up itself follows a few fixed patterns. An analysis of escort ads by Griffith and colleagues shows that the rate is based on the first hour, that a minimum duration often applies, and that an appointment at the client’s location costs more than at the sex worker’s, because travel time and travel costs count in.

Why sex work charges by the hour

A clear hourly rate gives both sides calm. The client knows in advance where they stand, and the sex worker does not have to bargain at the moment when it is really about trust. Logan and Shah point out that an openly stated price saves the haggling and takes the money talk away from the meeting itself.

What an hourly rate does not buy is whether it clicks. The time is fixed, the click is not, and that is exactly the part no rate can capture. So a fair rate is a good agreement about time, not a guarantee of a good evening.

How I do it myself

I charge for time and attention, not per act, and I would rather say that out loud than let it hang unspoken between us. I am Victor, a gigolo, and what I notice in practice is that a longer appointment runs calmer on its own, because nobody is watching the clock. We talk about the money in advance, so during our appointment it is off the table. I don’t list my own rates on this explainer page; those sit together on the pricing page.

Where this fits on my site

If you want to know what an appointment with me costs and how it is put together, that is laid out clearly on the rates page, and how you book covers how an appointment goes from the first question onward. If you doubt whether it fits you, ask your question first.

Sources

• Face Value: Information and Signaling in an Illegal Market. Trevon Logan & Manisha Shah, NBER Working Paper 14841, 2009. Supplies that male escorts announce their hourly price openly, that showing the price up front prevents bargaining during contact, and that what appears in the ad connects to how high the rate is.
• Online Female Escort Advertisements: The Cost of Sex. Griffith et al., Evolutionary Psychology, 2016. Supplies that the rate is based on the first hour, that a minimum duration is common, and that an appointment at the client’s location costs more than at the sex worker’s because of travel time and travel costs.

Related terms

• Sex work. The pillar: paid sexual or intimate services, of which the hourly rate is the pricing form.
• Deposit. The amount paid in advance to lock in the appointment, a different money agreement than the hourly rate.
• Escort. The service form where an hourly rate is used most, with an appointment on location or at the sex worker’s.