Fair way to figure a trade/barter?

[mamasaurus]

What is a fair way to figure a trade/barter?

Let's say you have two people who want to do a trade:

Person A's time/job is worth $95.00/hour.

Person B's time/job is worth $20.00/hour.

How do you set up the trade? And even hour-for-hour trade? Or do you say one hour of Person A's time is worth 5 hours of Person B's time?

[Paxjourney]

If it was me doing the trade/ barter I would discuss it with my trade partner. Gut feeling is that
one hour of Person A's time is worth 5 hours of Person B's time or perhaps 4 hours of person B's time.

[Pancakes]

That would completely depend on who's trading. If it's two good friends...hour for hour. If it's strictly business, dollar for dollar regardless of time.

[velochic]

I think it depends on needs. I think cost is irrelevant and certainly a person's hourly wage paid by people that afford it is irrelevant.

Our neighbor / friend has the tools to help us with things like cutting up felled tree limbs, clearing our drive of snow, etc. We have the skills to set up and install a home computer network from scratch for them. Neighbor is a manual laborer. Dh is a professor. Dh makes probably twice what our neighbor does, but the needs are equal.

[Ruthiegirl]

Hour for hour is how we do it. I have a new friend with whom I hope to swap homeschooling lessons. She teaches piano and guitar and I am a science geek. She has talents I lack and can teach my children and I have talents her kids can use and enjoy. Neither is 'worth' more than the other. We simply swap the skills we each have to offer.

[treespeak]

I think the key is that both individuals need to feel like they are getting a fair deal. Hour for hour sounds fair on paper, but if (in your example) the person whose work usually merits $95/hr has spent more money and time on education, tools etc. or their work is more physically taxing, it's fair to ask the other person in the barter to work more hours. I agree that neither party's time is worth more than the other per se, but in many cases the person with a higher wage invested more time/money/effort retrospectively and should be compensated for that.