What the Intermediary Takes
The gap between what a client is charged and what reaches you is the single most useful figure in a chain, and it is rarely volunteered.
Who am I actually engaged by here?
What you signedWho is responsible if something goes wrong?
The law where you areWhat is the intermediary taking, and for what?
What you signedDoes the structure change what I am?
The law where you areFour questions a person in this position actually asks. Every one of them has somewhere to look, which is not the same as having an answer. The structure was chosen by somebody else, for reasons that were not about you.
The gap between what the end client is charged and what reaches your account is the single most useful figure about a chain. It is rarely volunteered and frequently larger than people assume.
The practical question in “What the Intermediary Takes” is easier to handle when expectations and evidence are visible to both sides. For teams assessing task switching cost, explore the published platform details can provide time and project context, but the purpose should be disclosed, access limited and every consequential interpretation reviewed by a person.
Finding it out is sometimes possible, often awkward, and worth attempting once.
The CareerBuilder workplace advice offers a useful outside reference for “What the Intermediary Takes”. It should help form better questions rather than replace advice based on the person’s actual working arrangement.
Why it matters beyond curiosity
Because it tells you what room exists. A chain taking a small margin has little to give; one taking a large share has room to move, and knowing which you are in changes how you negotiate.
It also tells you whether going direct, where permitted, is worth the difficulty.
Where the figure can come from
Four routes, in rough order of ease:
- Asking the intermediary, who may be required to disclose it.
- Asking the end client what they are charged.
- Market knowledge from others doing the same work.
- What the end client advertises similar work at.
The second is delicate and the first is worth trying first.
Asking the intermediary
Put plainly, without implication:
Could you tell me what the client is being charged for my time? I am trying to understand where my rate sits.
Some markets require disclosure in some circumstances. Where no obligation exists, some operators answer anyway and some do not, and the refusal is itself worth noting.
Asking the end client
Riskier, because it reaches the intermediary quickly and can sour both relationships.
Where you do, the safer version is about the market rather than about them: asking what rates they generally see for this work, rather than what they pay for you. The answer is less precise and the question is less loaded.
What the margin is paying for
Genuinely something: the relationship with the client, the risk of being paid, administration, and in some arrangements obligations towards you that depend on your category.
Whether it is good value depends on the size of it, and that is the judgement the figure lets you make.
Multiple layers
Chains sometimes have more than one party in them, each taking something: a main contractor, an agency beneath, an umbrella beneath that.
Where that is your situation, the gap between the top and the bottom can be striking, and it is worth establishing how many parties exist at all. Several people discover a layer they did not know about.
Deductions that are not margin
Separate carefully. What an intermediary charges for its service is different from amounts it accounts for on your behalf, and both appear as reductions.
The article on umbrella arrangements covers how to ask for them split. Confusing the two leads people to overestimate what is being taken.
Using the figure
Carefully and rarely as a complaint. "I know what you charge for me" is a confrontation; "my rate has not moved in two years and the market is at X" is a negotiation.
The figure is for your own understanding first. It belongs in the conversation only where it genuinely strengthens it.
Going direct
Usually restricted, often for a period and sometimes with a transfer fee payable by the client. That clause is in the agreement if it exists.
Where you want to, the route that works is through the intermediary rather than around them, and the conversation is more available than people expect because a transfer fee is a real outcome for them.
Changing intermediary
Occasionally easier than going direct and worth knowing about. The same end client may be reachable through more than one agency, on different terms.
That is a real option in some markets and worth asking about rather than assuming the chain is fixed.
Deciding it is acceptable
A legitimate conclusion. A chain that takes a share and in return brings you steady work, handles the administration and carries the risk of being paid may be worth exactly what it costs.
The point of finding the figure is to decide rather than to assume, and the answer is sometimes that the arrangement is fine.
Working out your own floor instead
Where the margin cannot be found, the substitute is knowing what you would accept. The arithmetic from the money section gives you a figure; the market tells you what the work goes for.
Those two together let you judge an offer without ever knowing what anybody else is taking, which is the realistic position for most people in a chain.
What usually stays hidden
The actual number, in many cases. Disclosure obligations vary, people decline, and the end client may not know what you are paid either.
Where you cannot find it, the practical substitute is the market figure for your work, which tells you whether your rate is reasonable even if it never tells you what anybody else is taking.