How much is a fair rake?

I've had a couple of guys approach me over the past few weeks about what should be an acceptable and fair rake? I'm no authority as the only games which I have ever run have been home or office games which were rake-free. I have always held them to play the game and have entrusted my financial gains to my ability to play. Which probably explains why I'm always down lifetime-to-date.... LOL.

At any rate, the few games which I have regularly attended locally have all seemed to have a fair rake. I believe based on what I've seen and heard from AC and Vegas that a fair rake should be approximately $1 from every $20 in the pot up to a maximum rake of $5 for cash games. So there's no question about how much rake is taken, most professional games will have a spot on the table in front of the dealer where they will accumulate the rake during a hand and not pull any chips from the pot until the hand is completed. MMC's dealers did that over at the Chapel Hill Road/Johnson Street location before it was busted and I really liked it. There was never a question as to how much rake was taken from the pot. I know that some casinos charge an hourly fee which usually totals about $5 per seat per hour.

For tournaments, I believe that most tend to fall in a 5% to %10 amount of your buy-ins, re-buys and add-ons. In some instances, the percentage fluctuates higher on the re-buys and add-ons, but most totals would be around the 5%-10% mark.

That's my 2 cents worth... let me know your thoughts.