I think every abstractor needs to do what Lisa insinuated in figuring her cost of doing business.  As a VM at my last job I cannot tell you how many times I had some one came up with a price out of thin air when I explained the job to them.  As a VM when I gave a base price to a sales rep I would figure my average cost across the state for a particular search type and plug it into a formula including our hourly cost of doing business, any shipping costs and any special circumstances outside of our normal procedures, look at the clients size and plug in what we thought would be good profit margin and give that number to the sales rep and say here is the lowest you can go.  It seems to me that too many abstractors don’t apply basic business rules to pricing and just pick a number out of the air when quoting prices.  Too many are scared or desperate for business to give themselves and their experiences a decent monetary value.  Like the gentleman said at the Dallas NALTEA Conference abstractors and our services are nothing more than a commodity to be bought and sold if we do not give ourselves value.  I tend to agree with Mr. Bloys point that even a doc retrieval is a value added service.  If we do not charge for our skill, knowledge and (those that actually have it) experience; why would you expect the vendor manager not to take advantage, their job is to make money just like anybody else.