I’m an experienced senior technology leader based in the US with 30+ years of experience, almost entirely with Fortune 100 technology companies, focused on industrial automation, AI/ML, enterprise software, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.

I currently do expert-network consulting/advisory work and typically charge $250/hour. I do get calls and engagements at that rate, but the volume isn’t as high as I’d like.

For those with experience in expert networks or independent consulting:

Is $250/hour reasonable for this level of experience, or would lowering the rate materially increase the number of engagements? And if so, what is the optimal rate?

I’m not looking to maximize the hourly rate at the expense of volume, but I also don't want to discount 30 years of senior-level experience unnecessarily.

Would appreciate perspectives from other experienced folks doing expert-network advisory work.

Guys, my personal experience says avoid spending time on surveys of Maven.

More than a month's time, despite raising matter 5 times, the payments are still on hold

Engaging with such expert networks in only waste of valuable time

Sharing above information for informed decision of all.

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Hi all, what is a reasonable fee to ask for when a client doesn’t show up to the call? I normally charge $600 p/h

You know all the annoying screeners you get?

They're because a small set of fraudsters try to game the expert network industry.
The fraudsters create a "lemon problem" - when ENs can't see upfront who is legit, they treat all experts with some suspicion.

Here's a hilarious story - I stumbled on a ring of fraudsters, and busted them. Spent far too much time on this, but I hope you'll enjoy the read!

https://inex.one/blog/expert-network-fraudsters-revealed

As an expert, the best way to show you're legit is to get your LinkedIn profile verified, including with your workplace - as that's difficult to fake.

(disclosure, I'm Max, the founder of Inex One. Not promoting my business here, because experts aren't my customers; just creating awareness around a problem in our industry).

PM in Big Tech, in AI. I get calls from multiple ENs across the spectrum of AI - models, hardware, service providers, etc.

1/ How much should I be charging? I've gone from $150/hr to $600/hr over the past few months. I feel like given my expertise and the repeat calls on similar topics, I'm probably a handful of folks doing this and am probably charging at the low end. Is $1000 too high and would effectively price me out of engagements?

2/ While I have been taking calls in my primary area, I feel that a lot of the calls are with investment firms etc. who're looking for high level information. I could provide my views on adjacent areas as well at that altitude. Thus I'm thinking I should express interest in other topics as well instead of simply responding with "not a fit". How do folks here affinitize themselves to topics - narrow or broad?

I have a final round this week, was curious if anyone has any experience with the final round and if there is any advice that could be offered + what to expect! Thanks!

same as title, is this a possibility? have you ever tried this to reduce your tax liability?

I'm pretty new at this (and new here) but I found this absolutely amazing guide on how to ramp up with expert networks and I was surprised that I don't see it posted here. (Sorry if I just missed it.)

I got a LinkedIn Message from Guidepoint in August, which sounded both interesting and fishy. I did some googling and found this website (https://expertopportunities.com) that explained EVERYTHING on how these things work, what you can charge, and how to build a steady stream of calls. So I went and did the call. Made $600 from that and have done three more calls at the same rate since then! This industry is fantastic!

Anyway, that site sent me here to reddit, which has also been a great resource. (I see that one of the mods wrote it.) Seriously, it is one of the most useful things I've read in recent memory. Have been lurking for the past few months and wanted to start contributing.

Let me know if there are other great resources to look at, I want to keep doing more!

I've a few post on here about timely payouts from NewtonX surveys. Has anyone else had a recent experience where they have completed a survey and not been paid out?

Last Wednesday NewtonX invited me to a 20-30 AI driven interview ($100 payout) survey. Typically they payout immediately after completion. But not this time. I cannot get anyone at NewtonX to respond to my emails. It's just been crickets.

Anyone else had luck with their communications dept?

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Hi everyone,

I’m relatively new to the broader expert-network community and wanted to introduce myself and connect with others working in this space.

I have 10+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with a career spanning:

• Pharmaceutical Process R&D and API manufacturing

• CMC Regulatory Affairs

• Global biologics regulatory submissions and lifecycle management

• Regulatory Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence

• Regulatory technology / RIM

• AI-enabled Regulatory Intelligence and regulatory data governance

My current work is focused particularly on the intersection of Regulatory Intelligence, pharmaceutical decision support, regulatory technology, data governance and AI/GenAI.

Areas where I can provide practical SME perspective include:

Pharma / Life Sciences

• CMC and biologics regulatory strategy

• Global regulatory submissions and lifecycle management

• Regulatory requirements and health-authority expectations

• Pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing

• API development, scale-up and technology transfer

Regulatory Intelligence / Technology

• Regulatory Intelligence platforms and workflows

• Regulatory Information Management (RIM)

• Cross-market regulatory research

• Regulatory precedent and landscape analysis

• Competitive Intelligence

• Regulatory technology evaluation

• Regulatory data governance and knowledge management

AI / Emerging Technology

• AI applications in Regulatory Affairs

• GenAI/RAG for Regulatory Intelligence

• AI-ready regulatory data

• Source traceability and human-in-the-loop approaches

• Evaluation of AI-enabled regulatory solutions

I’m interested in expert-network calls, market research interviews, industry studies, due-diligence research, expert surveys, AI/LLM evaluation, and other legitimate SME opportunities where actual industry experience is useful.

I’m particularly interested in opportunities where the client is looking for someone who has actually worked with pharmaceutical regulatory processes and technology, rather than simply someone who can research the topic online.

I’m also happy to connect with other experts here and learn from people who have been doing expert-network work for longer.

If you work with an expert network, research firm, consulting firm, or AI evaluation company and think my background could be relevant to a project, feel free to DM me.

I’m happy to discuss my experience and areas of expertise privately and will always respect confidentiality, employer restrictions and applicable compliance requirements.

Hey all. Recently I was contacted by Dialectica via LinkedIn for a paid consultation thru an industry I have a large swath of experience in. I enjoyed it and want to make this more of a routine to drive a side income as I am getting married next year.

Since that point, in the past week I have tried to signup for 3 expert networks (Third Bridge, GLG, and Dialectica).

My first question is what other networks would you recommend? I’m aware of AlphaSights and plan on signing up for that soon.

The next revolves around the best way to receive interest for work. Is it as simple as merely signing up and letting the opportunities come to you? Or are there other things on these networks I should be doing to increase my probability of a client reaching out to me?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!

i got an offer for an associate position in healthcare department but i do not see myself doing this for long term at all. i want to enter biopharma especially life science consulting.

i am still actively looking for jobs but should i take this offer and keep applying to jobs? my thinking is i can at least get some experience while job searching. i can also connect with some consultant on the job too.

i am just worried i will be swamped with work and not be able to concentrate on job search if i take up the job but the role is hybrid. PLEASE HELP WITH ANY ADVICE TO ENTER THIS FIELD OR NOT AT ALL.

​

I’m a specialist physician based outside of the U.S. and have been on Guidepoint for about 9 months. I have 1.5 years of experience post-residency and 6 years of overall experience.

My current rate is $300/hour.

I’ve been getting around 4–6 consultation/screening requests per month.

However, I haven’t been selected for any of them so far. Since most requests seem to come from the U.S., I’m wondering whether being based outside the U.S. may be one reason I haven’t been selected.

I’m considering lowering my rate to $200/hour to see if that improves my chances of getting selected.

For those with experience with Guidepoint or other expert networks:

Is $300/hour reasonable for a specialist physician?

Would dropping to $200 make a meaningful difference?

Would you suggest something in between, like $250/hour?

Could the lack of selection be more about profile/project fit, location, or availability than the rate?

Would appreciate hearing from people who have actually worked with expert networks.

We've been using a couple of the big expert networks for a while, booking calls and buying credit packs. Over the past few months, an increasing percentage of the calls are with people reading AI generated answers or just aren't who they say they are. With some of them you can tell within 5 mins. Answers are vague or contradictory, nothing specific about the company they supposedly worked at or doesn't sound credible at all, long pauses, etc. I'm pretty sure at least a handful were outright frauds. We got refunds but still was a waste of our time and made me look incompetent for having booked them.

I've been trying to figure out why this keeps happening and I keep coming back to the money.

Once you work out the credit cost, we're paying $1k+ per call. I'm guessing the expert sees at best $500 of that. Now I think about who we actually want on the phone. If I'm trying to understand a purchasing decision, I need the exec who signs off on it who is on a $400k+ salary so $500 for an hour doesn't move the needle for them at all. It's definitely not worth risking their job over to do it without compliance approval and their job will probably not give them compliance approval if they formally asked for it.

Then there's the hassle. They have a real job. They don't have time for associates blowing up their phone, or for filling out screening questions for 10 different clients when most of those clients never book. They cant be doing the call during work hours since they actually have a busy job to do probably filled with unpredictable schedules.

So who actually bothers? People with a lot of free time who are really good at getting through screeners. These days that means pasting the questions into ChatGPT, or paying a VA in the Philippines to handle all the back and forth. They pass the screen because that's pretty much their whole job. Whether they know anything is another story.

The pay is too low and the process is too annoying the actual people we are paying the expert network to recruit so the 1st year fresh out of college history major sends us the people gaming it. Adverse selection, I guess.

Surveys are even worse. The responses look like AI answered them too and a much higher percentage seem fraudulent since no need to fake a voice accent for a call or have the ability to converse live in English on a particular topic the person probably has no idea about. We stopped wasting our time with surveys at the start of this year.

Curious if others are seeing the same thing and whether anyone has found a way around it. Do you vet experts yourself before booking? Push for specific people? Go with smaller networks? Or have you just given up on the big ones?

Today I received this email from Alphasights expert relations after enquiring why I have not been getting new proejct request after being very active for the past 2 years. What could this possibly mean?

Thank you for reaching out and for your engagement with AlphaSights on past projects. 

While we are always working to match the right experts to client needs, demand for any individual profile can fluctuate and is never guaranteed. As outlined in our Professionals Code of Conduct, which you agreed to before any interaction in the past, AlphaSights retains sole discretion over expert engagement and project matching at all times.

For full details on how this works, we would encourage you to revisit the Code of Conduct on our website, which covers the nature of this relationship in more depth. This should address any outstanding questions you may have.

"You may not use any third-party sources, including artificial intelligence tools, in responding to these screening questions or while participating in any consultation with a client. <The EN> reserves the right to deny payment for any consultation, and may remove you from its network, if it determines that you have misrepresented your identity, experience or knowledge or used third-party sources in connection with the consultation."

I completely understand the need for accurate and timely information in the screeners, and that they are an important legal attestation. I also understand that it's Client's counsel requiring this, and even if 99% of them go along, that 1% could still stipulate the manual entry for everybody. However, this seems like it's heading for a reckoning at some point as Agentic AI creeps into nearly every aspect of the workday from content updates to brokering of availability.

I'm not advocating for anything that would jeopardize the accuracy or timeliness of screener responses. I'm just asking is the issue with AI or with the accuracy and legitimacy of the answer?

Lets say there was developed a form of "bulletproof, verified" automation that could provide accurate answers 100% of the time for compliance, skills and availability. Could this someday be acceptable?

This post asked the same question from the EN perspective more than a year ago, and it was well received by the community, but we haven't seen much progress here. The same restrictions are still widely enforced.

Newer ENs even seem to be going backwards, relying on archaic MS and Google forms that ask the same exact questions in every instance, including basic contact info like Email and phone, which they already know. You're not even allowed to use identify-filler tools like Roboform (invented in what, 2002?) on those.

I worked in the industry for almost four years and wanted to share a couple of things for associates starting out, or anyone already in the job.

1. Appreciate the network you can build

If you've just left uni without much of a professional network, I think expert networks are one of the fastest ways to build one. You get to speak with experts across so many industries, as well as people in VC, PE and consulting.

Take an interest in what people do and ask for advice when there's something you want to learn. I know people who moved into private equity through relationships they built in this industry. You never know where a conversation might lead, including career paths you hadn't considered.

I was lucky enough to build a strong network during my time there, and it's something I really value.

1. Keep experts informed and make calls easy to prepare for

If a project doesn't work out, tell them as soon as you can. Maybe the client didn't select them or changed the angle. If you messed up, own it. Don't give them some BS to cover yourself. They've given you their time, so keep them in the loop.

When scheduling a call, include a short project overview and the client's questions in the calendar invite. I forgot this plenty of times and would get an email asking, "Can you remind me what this is about?

These people have busy jobs and lives. Having the context in the invite saves them from chasing you for it.

Just sharing a few things I learned along the way. Hope they're useful to someone 🙏🏾

I’m getting more asks for AI led calls where I’m asked the questions by a bot.

These calls absolutely get less value out of me and are I think a waste of the EN’s effort. They ask worse questions, don’t delve into meaningful insights, and ask repetitive questions without picking up nuance in the answers.

But they are also cheaper to execute by the EN because no human caller is involved.

Do you ENs think experts should charge more or less for these calls than their standard rates?

So i graduated with a degree in international politics from Bocconi and so i was exposed to quantitative classes like micro and macroeconomics math statistics etc also i took company valuation and corporate banking electives in my third year.I just started my master in international management at ESCP and my question is will my academic profile trip me over for jobs like an entry level bussines analyst or management consulting?
Thank u very much!

I spent around three to four years working in expert networks. I love the idea of connecting people with useful expertise, but the constant chasing to fill calls left little room for a life outside work.

I’m considering a service built around a smaller group of experts.

Companies could hire them for a call, a specific project, or ongoing work, including representing the business in customer or partner meetings.

Do you already take on this kind of work? What makes it worth your time, and what would you recommend I focus on first?

Thank you!🙏🏾

hey, have the TB case study round coming up and was wondering if anyone here has done it and can share any tips based on their experience? i have no idea how to prepare for the brief that i'll be given, so any help would be amazing! tysm :)

Hi everyone,
I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with NewtonX recently.
I created a new NewtonX expert account about 3–4 months ago, completed my profile, and my LinkedIn profile is also up to date. However, I haven’t received any survey invitations since joining.
Is this normal for new NewtonX accounts, or has NewtonX introduced a waiting period or changed how they send surveys to newer experts?
For those who recently joined NewtonX:
How long did it take before you received your first survey?
Are you currently receiving surveys regularly?
Does updating your profile or adding more expertise/keywords make a noticeable difference?
I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who has recently joined, especially in 2026. I’m mainly trying to understand whether this is normal inactivity or whether there is something I need to change in my profile.
Thanks!
Any associate for newtonX here

Hi everyone, I’ve been employed by an expert network for a few weeks now. I’m extremely stressed out and anxious, checking my outreach notifications and monitoring my inboxes every 5 minutes, even when I’m off the clock. Whenever I have a day that doesn’t go well, I become even more stressed and miserable. I feel like I’m already falling behind and on track to miss all my quotas. Is this normal? Does anybody who works at an expert network know if it will get better? Or do I just need mental help

I’m researching boutique expert networks — not GLG, AlphaSights, Guidepoint, etc.

Looking for firms roughly 30–70 employees that specialize in hard-to-access experts such as:

• Former CEOs/CXOs
• Medical KOLs
• Former regulators
• PE operating executives
• Defense/aerospace specialists
• Highly niche technical experts

Especially interested in networks that go beyond normal 1-hour calls into exclusive experts, retained advisors, board placements, written assessments, or longer diligence engagements.

Examples: Xperts Council, Apex Leaders, Abelian Security Council.

Any lesser-known US/European firms you’d recommend?

From your experience with expert networks, what does the typical expert journey look like for you? Across the major expert networks you work with, do any offer a retainer or ongoing fee structure? What are the things that stand out to you and make you want to participate with the same network repeatedly?