Get paid to give advice: 7 ways professionals do it, and how each pays
Seven real ways to get paid to give advice, from expert network calls to advisory equity and coaching, with what each needs from you and how the pay works.
Professionals get paid to give advice in seven main ways: expert network calls, paid call marketplaces, direct paid invitations, advisory roles, consulting projects, coaching and written answers. If you want to get paid to give advice, the right one depends less on how much you know and more on how you want to be paid: per hour, per answer, per project or in equity.
Our advice: start with a short paid call about your industry, because it needs no website or sales process. Coaching is the slowest to get going, because it depends on clients who come back.
The seven ways, side by side
| Way | What you do | What it needs from you | How pay works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expert networks | Short paid calls with clients researching your industry | Recent, specific experience and a compliance check | Hourly rate or a flat fee per call, agreed before you accept |
| Paid call marketplaces | Calls booked from a public profile | A profile buyers find, and some following of your own | You set the price; the platform keeps a share |
| Direct paid invitations | A buyer contacts you with a specific paid offer | A findable profile, a clear specialty | The buyer names an amount; you accept, counter or decline |
| Advisory roles | Monthly meetings and help with a startup or company | A track record the company wants associated with it | Usually equity that vests |
| Consulting projects | A defined piece of work with a deliverable | The ability to scope, sell and deliver | Hourly, daily or a fixed project fee |
| Coaching | Repeated sessions with one person | A method, and clients who come back | Per session or per package |
| Written answers | Answering one question in writing or by voice note | Clear writing, quick turnaround | Per answer |
The sections below cover what each looks like from your side, in the order we would try them.
1. Expert networks pay per call and do the selling for you
Expert networks connect professionals with clients who want an hour of industry perspective. You join, a network contacts you when a project matches your background, and you answer a few screening questions before the client picks who to speak with.
What the networks say about pay, on their own sites:
- GLG's member programs page includes a sample note for members to send their employer, which describes being paid "at a set hourly rate or pre-disclosed flat fee". The same page says enrolling in its member programs is free and opens written work and in-person meetings beyond calls and surveys.
- Guidepoint's advisor page asks for people with 10 or more years of experience, says every invitation comes with the scope, time commitment and compensation up front, and says answers to screening questions are not compensated.
Neither page publishes a typical rate, so be wary of any article that claims to know what a network pays. The post on expert network consulting covers signing up, and expert network calls covers the call itself.
Short version: the best fit if you have recent experience in an industry investors care about, and the worst fit if you want to choose who you talk to.
2. Paid call marketplaces let you set the price, and you do the selling
Marketplaces list you with a public profile and a price, and anyone can book you. The tradeoff with expert networks is control in exchange for demand: you choose the price, but buyers have to find you.
Their own pages:
- Clarity says each expert sets their own hourly rate, shown as a per-minute rate on the profile, and that it does not enforce pricing guidelines. It charges experts a 15% service fee on every completed call, and an expert has 72 hours to respond to a call request before it expires.
- Intro says on its expert page that you set your own price per session, choose call lengths from 15 minutes to 3 hours, and pay a 10% commission on bookings from your own link or efforts and 30% on bookings through its marketplace, which it describes as invite-only.
Read that Intro split carefully. The platform takes the bigger share when it brings the buyer, so a marketplace pays best when you already have an audience to send to your booking link. If nobody knows your name yet, a listing alone may get few bookings. The post on Intro.co and Clarity.fm alternatives compares more of these.
3. Direct paid invitations come to you with the price attached
Here the buyer finds you (a company researching a market, an investor, a founder, a salesperson who wants your view on a product) and sends a specific offer: a 30-minute call or a written answer for a stated amount. You do not apply or sit in a pool. You see the question and the money, and you decide.
This format suits busy senior people best, because each request is self-contained. The main job on your side is being findable: a profile that names what you know, specifically enough that the right buyer picks you.
When an offer is too low, counter with your price rather than ignoring it. A declined counter costs you nothing, and an ignored offer tells the buyer nothing.
4. Advisory roles pay in equity, slowly
A startup advisor meets the founders regularly and helps with introductions, hiring or a specific problem. Pay is usually equity, which is worth something only if the company does well.
The Founder Institute's FAST agreement, a free standard advisor template, suggests equity by stage and effort. For "standard" help (monthly meetings), the grid suggests 0.50% at pre-seed, 0.25% at seed and 0.10% at Series A. For "expert" help (adding contacts and projects), it suggests 1.00%, 0.75% and 0.50%. Its example vests over two years, with a three-month cliff, so an advisor who stops in the first three months gets nothing.
Take an advisory role for the company and the people, and treat the equity as a bonus you may never collect. The posts on startup advisor compensation and advisory shares go deeper. For what these profiles look like, see the startup advisors and board advisors directories.
5. Consulting pays the most per engagement and asks the most of you
Consulting means owning a result, such as a pricing review or a vendor selection. It pays per project or per day, and it needs skills the other formats skip, such as scoping the work and chasing invoices.
For a sense of scale, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median wage of $48.97 an hour ($101,860 a year, May 2025) for management analysts, its term for management consultants, and says 14% of them were self-employed. That median is mostly employee pay. An independent consultant has to charge well above it to cover tax, insurance and unpaid selling time, which the consulting rate calculator works through.
Start with one small, fixed-scope project for someone who already trusts you, and put the scope in writing (the post on consulting agreements covers what to include).
6. Coaching pays per session, but the session rate overstates the hourly income
Coaches work with one person over many sessions, on leadership or a specific skill. The 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study, from the International Coaching Federation, reports an average fee of $244 per one-hour session globally in 2022 and $272 in North America. (ICF has since run a 2025 study, but its summary sits behind a sign-up form, so these are the latest open figures.) The same table reports a much lower "average hourly revenue recovered" of $85 globally and $98 in North America, and 53% of coaches reported less than $30,000 a year from coaching.
The gap between $244 and $85 is the part to plan for. A full-price session is not what every working hour earns. Coaching fits people who enjoy repeated work with one person and are willing to build a client base slowly. See the executive coaches directory for examples of how coaches present themselves.
7. Written answers pay per question and fit anywhere in your week
Some buyers want a paragraph more than a call: a quick read on whether a market is crowded, or how a buyer in your industry would react to a pricing change. You answer in writing or by voice note, on your schedule. GLG lists written work among the projects open to enrolled members, and paid invitation services also offer it.
Written answers suit people with packed calendars. They do reward clear writing: answer the question in the first sentence, give one reason from experience, and stop.
How to choose your first one
Pick by the payment shape you want:
- Cash per hour, soon: expert networks and direct paid invitations.
- Cash per hour, your price, your audience: a paid call marketplace.
- A bigger payment per engagement: consulting.
- Equity in a company you believe in: an advisory role.
- Repeat income from one person at a time: coaching.
Whichever you choose, you are selling experience and judgment, never your employer's confidential information. Questions about a public company can also run into insider trading rules, explained in the post on material non-public information. If you are employed, check your contract for outside-work and conflict clauses first.
On Instant Expert, a buyer invites you to a specific paid call or a written or voice answer, sets the amount up front, and you receive the full amount offered; you can reply with your own price if it is too low. Claim your profile to set the rate buyers start from, or see open paid requests on the request board.