When buying and flipping houses, what is the standard amount/rate to pay the General Contractor doing the renovations?

If you're buying the house and paying all of the remodel costs, why the hell would he be entitled to any of the profit?! I'd get outta there STAT.

I've been a GC for 30 years, I have made deals with first time customers where I break a job down into various aspects, i.e. plumbing, or drywall, flooring e.t.c.. where I get paid after each aspect is completed, that way I have some cash and the customer doesn't have to give a big down payment up front, win/win situation.

There would minimal upside for you to get into this deal, unless he is not taking any overhead/general conditions (basically his salary) and not charging a Fee/Profit. Fee's on residential construction can vary heavily, but try to keep it at or under 5%. Also, draws are monthly, not weekly. Make sure you are holding 10% retainage until he is 100% complete with everything. If he gets ahead of you on his cash flow, there is little incentive for him to get done quickly or at all.

It doesn't sound like you've purchased a property yet so that's the assumption I'll work under. I think that without a little more knowledge, you are leaving yourself extremely vulnerable to being ripped off really badly. By everone. Being a woman, you already have the outer rings of the target drawn on your forehead. I also think you should run as far away as you can from that contractor because, no matter what 'deal' you make with him, his underlying intention, now exposed, is to take advantage of your ignorance, and there are a million ways he can do it if you put him in a position to. Believe me, I know. Luckily, experience is not the only way to put yourself in control of your flips. Order the book 'The Book on Flipping Houses' and 'The Book on Estimating Costs' which come together from the munu above. (If you buy them from Amazon, you have to pay for them separately.) They will educate and empower you more than you can imagine and tens of thousands of dollars are at stake. Until you've gone through those, I'd stop looking for properties (except to maybe practice using the flipping calculator, also in the menu above.) It's also a good way to test whether or not this business is for you. If you don't feel motivated enough to learn to be somewhat of a GC or project manager yourself, and it's maybe just the dream of money that attracted you to flipping, then there may be other areas of real estate that you'd want to consider. You don't have to be a total DIYer but, an intrinsic 'interest' is, in my opinion,a plus, if not a necessity. (Not at all meaning to discourage you.) In other words, no, that's not a good arrangement for you. "Skin in the game" is a requirement of any joint venture.

@Jason Martin never said anything more true - work should be paid as it's done - not upfront which everyone will tell you is 'standard practice'.

Is he also willing to "chip in" if for some unfortunate reason you have to sell for a loss? Sounds like a rip off to me.

I wouldn't split the profit of the deal with the GC if that is what he is proposing. Generally they will just tack on their fee to the repair bid. We have used 2 GC's and both just added 5-7% on top of the repair bid for their services.

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