• Commitment buys the discount. Ad-hoc is always the most expensive line. Marketplace listings are the least committed work there is, so they sit at the ad-hoc rate: $150/hr, both of them. $125 is the floor for committed work, not a marketplace price.
• Work out what the fee buys THEM, in hours, but keep it internal. They hand over a number, so convert it: fee ÷ $144 = hours a month, ÷ 4.33 for hours a week, ÷ 8 for days. Cross-check the floor: fee ÷ $125 = the absolute hour ceiling before the deal is underwater. This tells you whether the deal is good, it is not what you quote them. What you quote is always the cadence: a day and a half a week. If the fee converts to more hours than one real day a week costs you, the difference is your premium, not their entitlement.
• A fixed fee buys a retainer month, not floating days. Think monthly, because that is the shape of the work. £5,000 becomes one month at your standard day a week, which is the cadence you sell everywhere, so the engagement stops being an exception. Month two is a new conversation at card rate, never an assumed continuation.
• Convert the currency before you convert to weeks. £5,000 is not $5,000, it is $6,684, which is 1.34× the $5,000 monthly retainer rather than one month of it. That single step is the difference between six weeks and five. Sterling fees always get converted first, at a rate you write down with its date.
• The claimed roster and the claimed cadence have to multiply to less than five. That is the whole reason the number is three. Three at a day and a half is 4.5 days and survives a prospect doing the sum in their head. Four at a day and a half is six days, which does not exist, and the moment they spot it the cap sounds invented. Never state a roster and a cadence that do not multiply.
• One real day a week per client. Always. That is the internal arrangement and it does not move for what any client, advisor or board expects to be buying. Four clients, one day each, four days worked. Days are a value anchor in conversation, never a contractual commitment: write cadence and deliverables into the paper.
• Speed compresses deliverables, not availability. Scoped work benefits from your speed. On-call and "day-to-day" advisory does not, so bound it into scheduled sessions.
• The cap is the product. Three clients, a day and a half each, and that is why you are any good to them. The scarcity is the sell, not an apology for limited availability.

The question sounds like arithmetic but it is not. They are asking "will you actually be here, or am I buying a name?" Answer the reassurance and the hours question loses its force.

• "A day and a half a week. I take three clients at a time, that's the whole model, which is why I'm actually in your business rather than passing you to an account manager. Most of that is me doing the work. We're live together once a week, and I'm reachable in between."
• Why three and not four: three at a day and a half is 4.5 days, which adds up if they do the sum while you're talking. Four would be six days and it would not. The three is the claim; four is what you actually carry, because each only costs you a real day.
• If they need more: "Then we talk about a bigger engagement. I'd rather do that than quietly stretch this one and do both badly."
• If you're quicker (don't volunteer): "Then you get the time back and we use it on the next thing. You're paying for the outcome, not for me to look busy."
• Never say "it depends" or "it varies with what you need." Number first, qualify after.

• Any engagement is quoted off-card. A second exception means the card is wrong, not the deal.
• Any retained client crosses 1 real day a week for two months running. Drift shows up as time before it shows up as money.
• The roster hits 4. Full capacity is when to raise, not hold.
• Every 6 months regardless, against actual delivered days rather than assumed ones. This card rests on an assumption about how long things take you, and the only way to know if it holds is to check it against real work.