Excellent point–Ask first (you may be quite happy). I suppose countering at $100 would be OK, assuming you know the most distant, time-consuming location you can profitably drive to for that fee. Anything closer would equal more profit to you while not appearing unreasonable to them. But I’d think the mileage would be very *(too?) low. Again, OK if you are in an extremely densely populated area.
I am in Eastern Washington, you drive forever to get anywhere that’s just the way it is. I’ll do in county at $100. Do I make a lot of money - probably not. But if it’s over 150 pages and I go gee that’s big I can always get a bump. So as I go out of county my fees go up. I also know there are notaries in those other counties who are taking less than me - and that’s okay because when I stay in county my margins stay pretty good. There are some counties that have limited notaries if any or notaries just won’t go. These are areas I can charge a lot higher fee and get it. I think the key to anyone’s success is to know their market. You can’t take all advice in this forum as though it applies to your region. Someone here once said don’t do ANYTHING for less than $125. If a notary in my county used that as a rule they’d never work. That’s just the way it is.