My lowest rate is $100/hr, as a single-person consultant with almost no overhead. Some people charge lower rates for different types of work--like documentation--I see no sense in it, since it's still tying up my time and that's what is being bought. My preference is to tinker on my own projects and not work for other people; the client's job is to entice me away from my preference.
I charge extra for anything I don't want to do. It's $300/hr for VB6, Crystal Reports, or MS Access stuff. I know the client can get someone else to do it cheaper. They frequently tell me as such, clearly missing the point that I want them to get someone else to do that shit. There is no way that stuff helps my long term development.
No, I don't stay 100% active with these prices. I have a steady 20 hours a week of work at $100/hr. Does that make me more or less rich than a person working 40 hours a week at $50/hr? Hard work is for suckers.
People complain about me being expensive until I release the first milestone. After that, they tend to shut up about the price. What's cheaper, a $25/hr developer from Croatia who takes 6 months to deliver the project, or a $100/hr developer who takes 2 weeks, with the added bonus that it actually works?
Something that always bothered me when I was a working stiff: I was always evaluated for pay based on how old I was, whether or not I was married with kids, and whether or not I owned my own house. No, no, no, you pay me based on what I can do, not on what I need. That's why (amongst many other ethics-related reasons) I consult now.
Why are you comparing a bad developer from Croatia with a good one from somewhere else( USA I assume ). The situation might as well be reversed, you can't assume someones skill from their geographical location.
> The situation might as well be reversed, you can't assume someones skill from their geographical location.
You most certainly can. I can tell you that the average developer hired from India will have a significantly reduced skillset than one hired in the US. If that's not polite in civilized company, well then, tough.
That said, it's largely irrelevant. What's truly relevant are culture differences and you do not want to deal with them. Hire locally. If you're in Croatia, hire in Croatia. If you're in India, hire in India. If you're in the US, hire in the US. The reduced amount of grief and clear communication is worth it. Never-mind that you're in the same timezone as well.
Yeah. Everyone I know who has had a good experience with an overseas shop has said "of course, we keep one of our employees over there full time working directly with them, which ends up being kind of expensive"
From their geographic location, I can assume that they are likely to charge significantly less than me.
From the quality of just plain not being me, I can assume they aren't as good as me. I have yet to have experience prove this assumption wrong.
I've worked on projects with other developers in San Diego, Chicago, Miami, Iran, India, Croatia, and many other places. They've all been pretty crappy developers whom I can only imagine lied about their credentials, because I just can't imagine how it is possible they make any software for anyone. The client has eventually fired them all because they realized what a bad deal they were. The only difference between them was the hourly rate they charged, meaning there were often more from India than San Diego.
Developer from Croatia here :)
Yes we do charge less because of our geographic location, but I wouldn't say significantly less, or maybe not at rates you are talking about ($100/hr really isn't that much).
That said, I spent 2 months in San Francisco this summer and was able to find a job for higher rate just because I was there. I guess it comes with territory. :)
Location has heavy influence on prices.. look at other professional services even inside US.
Doctors / counselors / lawyers etc.. everyone's prices depends on location.
On the other hand you cant say about quality. Ya India has lots of crappy developers, but that is just because there are way to many developers. Good ones dont need to market themselves too much and hence most people would have never heard about them outside their circle of clients.
This assumption is just plain wrong. Those clients just jump on seeing such low rates without checking work first. If one's hiring process is not good then bad hires are bound to happen no matter if the hire is Indian or American.
No, I said that most developers, regardless of price, are bad, and most overseas developers, regardless of quality, are cheap. Thus, the intersection of the two makes for a large volume of low-price, low-quality developers.
He probably should have said 'the chance of a bad developer from...' If you are local and have references your risk is drastically reduced. Clients pay for that.
I think it's uncommon because most people just aren't very good at programming, but more importantly, most people can't imagine work not working for The Man. I probably work a lot more than most people, once my personal projects are taken into account, but most people wouldn't count that work as legitimate because--for some reason--they only see work-for-pay as legitimate.
Maybe it's a vestige of a pseudofeudalistic time in which one measured their worth relative to the worth of their master. "You plow the fields owned by IBM? Well! My lord and master is GOOGLE. He makes your puny duchy look like PeopleSoft. FOR THE EMPIRE!!!"
My rates are in the same ballpark as the person above, I have a small number of regular clients, I try not to work more than 30 hours a week. I could work more if I wanted to. Instead, I'm working on side-projects that are more fun, and some of them could turn into businesses eventually.
My take-home pay is higher than it was working 50+ hours for salary at the hotshot San Francisco success story where I was working last year -- and I don't even have Bay Area clients, at the moment. People in Oregon and Washington are paying me this well.
This is a great post, an unusually great one on this subject, and I only have this to add: don't charge hourly. You can break your finances down by the hour if you want, but your customer should interface with you on a day-rate basis, or, if you're ambitious, a week-rate.
I'm not sure I've ever talked to someone who moved from hourly to daily and regretted doing so.
I agree in general, but I think it depends on the kind of work you're doing.
Right now I'm doing some actual consulting (in contrast to contract work), and being available by the hour has been helpful. I turn up at a couple of regular meetings; when some issue comes up that I can help with, I help.
On a day rate, the expense is large enough that people only want to call you in when there's something they perceive as big and serious. But when it's just time worked, they're happy to grab you for a short chat. Which often turns into something larger. And it makes it easy to leave the contract open; I've been doing this with one client for circa 6 months. That has let me influence them a lot more than a short burst of days would have done.
My problem is that if I charge daily I feel obliged to work at least 8 hours a day, which frankly I often don't manage. Some days I waste too much time on the internet which I don't want to bill, or I am too tired (unfortunately my sleep is unreliable).
It's a bit lame, I'd like to be a better person who can just do a normal 8 hour day, but so far I have always failed. One reason I like freelancing is because I can only charge for the hours I actually work. It's also a major reason employment is not for me.
There is no such obligation; in fact, disposing of that obligation is part of the point of billing daily instead of hourly. Think about it this way: when you bill hourly, not every second of that hour is spent in diligent work either.
I'll try that next time, must admit I really have to overcome some inner resistance.
I've been thinking to try "project based pay" again for that reason (fixed price for delivery/milestones), but that is of course fraught with other problems. Most importantly the dependence on other people that can delay execution and therefore also payment. And of course the difficulty of making good estimates.
As someone who is just starting out freelancing, and constantly hears 'bill daily, not hourly', how does that work when daily work hours aren't uniformly distributed? Some days I might work 5 -6 hours, others I may work 12. I like the flexibility of being able to work when I want and would hate to have to compromise on that.
If you put in five or six hours of focused, high-quality work in a day (i.e. not spending most of it attending meetings, checking your e-mail, rearranging icons on your desktop or whatever), you're doing about as much as can be sustainably done; charge for that day with a clear conscience.
If you spend a couple of hours trying to concentrate before realizing you didn't really get anything done, you're just messing around and you need a break, take the day off and don't charge for it.
As znowi mentioned, don't bother charging hourly or daily or any period of time.
The client will ask for a specific thing to be done. Give the client a specific price for that thing. That's it.
How you calculate that is your business. Personally, I figure out the worst-case scenario and price it for that. If I finish earlier, because of my brilliance, well we can just call that profit.
You're happy because you just finished something high quality and in good time. The client is thrilled because they knew what they were going to pay, got what they wanted, and got it quickly and professionally. The client didn't have to worry about hourly rates or daily rates, unexpected surprises, etc. they knew what they were going to pay. You took the risk out of the transaction for the client and made a good amount of cash for yourself. Everybody wins.
I like project-based billing but a lot of people don't, because it exposes them to risk (scope changes, unexpected complexities, client downtime) that they can avoid with time & materials billing. A weekly rate is, to a customer, pretty close to the same interface as a project rate, so if you're thinking about charging project rates, consider weeklies instead.
Also remember that part of the idea of upping your billing increment is not accepting piecemeal work.
I'm interested to know how you manage the risk inherent in project-based billing.
In my experience it is simply unworkable: the client will provide the vaguest of specifications and providing them with a set-in-stone price raises unrealistic expectations. The requirements are simply too fuzzy at the outset of a project to be able to price it accurately.
Of course the solution only becomes more concrete as the project progresses and requirements change and crystallize based on feedback. This is expected behaviour of course, but I've never been able to reconcile it with project-based billing.
Do you simply allow a certain buffer zone and take the good with the bad?
I'll just quote myself: "Personally, I figure out the worst-case scenario and price it for that."
Experience helps with the above. Obviously you can never know precisely how much effort something will take. Stuff comes up. Even if the work itself is stupid easy, it might take you 2 hours to find the exact line of code that needs to be changed and sometimes it takes 5 minutes. And you never know which is which. So charge for 2 hours.
> the client will provide the vaguest of specifications and providing them with a set-in-stone price raises unrealistic expectations.
Clearly define the parameters of the project. Clearly define what you will do. Don't do any more or any less than that.
If the client needs something extra done, and this happens, simply price that out separately.
> The requirements are simply too fuzzy at the outset of a project to be able to price it accurately.
I agree. Experience and clearly defined parameters and contract goes a long way in project based billing. If requirements are fuzzy then we developers need to help the client to make them clear by asking the right questions.
Look, I am a developer from India. An above average developer by Indian Standards, but the problem is most Indian clients are also below an average client. They dont know what exactly they want. This ends up increasing number of iterations, which is ok. But then I have never experienced a client appreciating these iterations.
There are significant cultural differences between how business is done in the West and in India. I talked about this in another comment.
I don't want to give you advice one way or another, because I'm not Indian, so anything I would say is bullshit. Talk to some developers in India who aren't just above average, but are in fact, stellar. Some of them are probably making good money. Ask them what they do, they'll be able to give you the best advice for the Indian market.
You can still bill quarter days (it is really hard to do anything meaningful in less than 2 hours). Billing by the day just gives you more flexibility when the client asks for a discount. Giving a $100 discount on an $800 day sounds bigger than a $20 discount on $100/hour.
I see this advice over and over again, but I'm really interested in reasoning behind it.
Hourly rate works fine for situations where one day you work 3 hours, and another day - 9 hours. The day-rate by default assumes that you at least work for 8 hours. So why bring this unnecessary constraint?
Some reasoning for switching away from hourly billing:
- Less time spent tracking hours
- Less risk of client quibbling about time spent on each task
- Disassociation from hourly rates (e.g. a large client may pay $20K a week for an important project, whereas people may balk at a $500-1000 equivalent hourly rate)
- More likelihood of working on larger, more important projects (less risk of the project falling apart, not getting paid, etc)
A daily rate will limit your client pool, but in a good way: bigger, more serious, and richer companies. A weekly rate will do this even more-so. But if you can reach the big fish and convince them of your value, more lucrative.
I see. It makes sense for short-term-ish projects.
But I had experience of long-term working with the client, where there are no milestones. There is just an unlimited continuous flow of work to be done. So if you charge daily, that most likely implies 8 hours of work per day. Basically, it is more like a regular employment, but with a freedom of working whatever hours you want, including zero.
I was just summing up the worked hours at the end of the month and billed with it.
The hours you work are largely irrelevant though. Your services are of high enough value to the customer to warrant charging per day. If you can provide the agreed upon service within 2 hours rather than 8, good for you. It doesn't matter to the client as long as they get what they pay for.
It of course depends on the work you do and so forth. If you are contracted by day for a job that require 8 hours of availability time, then you should probably work those 8 hours.
I think I see what you're getting at, but this seems like a circular argument. Yes, if the client is paying you "per day" and leaving it up to you to define a day, then of course they always technically getting what they paid for. Seems like if you really want to be paid based on output, you should negotiate a project rate. How else does it work? Do you and the client have to agree each day on the deliverables for that day?
I'm still new to freelancing, so I don't have a ton to add, but I'll note that many freelancers (myself included) don't interface directly with the customer. As a solo programmer, I do a lot of work for firms that themselves are working with the customer.
Being one step removed from the customer means I don't have as much bargaining power to charge based on the value I'm providing. The firm I'm working with has already charged based on value, and now I need to fit within their budget.
I know the answer is to "break out" of this situation, but especially as a programmer (and not designer, marketer, etc) I've found it difficult to charge based on business value when there is a sea of programmers out there willing to work for way less than me. Just to be clear, I think this is good advice, but boy, implementing it is a daunting task.
You shouldn't worry too much about "way less than you".
Think, for example, about the food you buy. For most people, there are alternatives available that are much cheaper. E.g., you could be buying beans and rice in 10 lb sacks. Or you could be haunting grocery stores for scratch-n-dent sales on generic food.
Now think of a specific purchase you made and ask yourself: Why do you pay more than the minimum? What are your motivations, and how do you make your choices?
Sometimes price matters a lot, and it always matters a little. But it's rarely the biggest factor in a purchasing decision.
May I ask where you find these firms? I know a lot for on-site contracting, but off-site freelancing I don't seem to find many (specially in UK/Europe)
A small suggestion (and boy I do not have this all figured out yet)
Charge by feature, estimate in your head how long a feature will take, multiply by your secret hourly rate, and say that will cost X dollars and be ready at the end of iteration one.
This is good for several reasons
It ties the billing cycle to a feature a client wants instead of to your time which they could care less about.
It focuses on the clients features - so you are always talking their language. I am trying to get client to write a press release for the feature (think scrum story but more visceral)
The aim is to break down the project into chunks the client cares about and thinks about in their terms and then to charge for it in increments that are of value or interest to the client. Usually this is on the order of days - this way you are charging very small fixed cost projects - reducing your risk whilst getting off the per hour billing mindset
It also allows you to find any way, some way to measure business value from the feature (hits per day, minutes saved per sales call - whatever)
Being the person who talks in their ideas, and shows how they brought in more revenue or higher kPI is a good place to be.
Then raise your secret hourly rate, and features just get more expensive. Instead of arguments about hourly rates and full time salaries
I like this approach; the other reason it is good is that when the client sees the proposal, they get choices. They can see the breakdown, see which feature costs how much, and customize how they want it.
This involves the client more, making it more of their project, and also it changes the dialogue from "Should I hire them?" to "Which features should I hire them to do?"
The only thing I would change is that your expected time per feature times your hourly rate is the floor cost of each feature. Be aware of your costs but do not charge solely based on them. If feature X is a huge win for the client but is easy for you (due to your years of experience, built-up tech-stack, or home-built tools), don't give it away for peanuts!
Yes it makes it very easy to shift features around to get a decent spread of easy and hard in a week / iteration.
It's also useful to have a check - more than a three day estimate basically means its too big - redo the press release
As for the floor cost - maybe. You still need to keep your feet on the ground at some point so increasing your rates and multiplying up is a fine approach. When you have an obvious winner go for much bigger rewards - but not everytime
It has the difficulty of justifying to clients who reckon they know the standard industry rates, why a feature costs so much. Having a per-feature price doesn't get round questions about why this costs so much.
Clients who have a little technical knowledge are the most dangerous. I have one with a large-agency background in the mid-'90s who quibbles every single time over the cost, whether fixed for per-hour. Because he expects it to always be a quick 5 minute/1 hour fix. So even on fixed price, he's sat there going "Well this costs $400, it isn't complex and will only take 2 hours, so they're charging... $200/hr?!!". Cue the same old justification of effort fight again, where "because there are unknowns and it could take 2 hours to debug the network issue" doesn't justify charging for it, because computers are simple, I'm the expert and I should know what I'm charging for...
Quite simply we have moved from discussing my hourly rate and onto "you will deliver valuable feature X, that I estimate will improve sales by Y - but you are charging too much for it"
Now that is a much easier argument to have - plus if I have many other features I can swap some around, split X into xx and xy and so on. Talking about features for the client is always good
that's great if you're really, really certain that your definition of a "feature" is one that the customer will accept. A few years ago I was working for a consulting firm that had this bad habit of pitching something, and the customer would somehow think they were getting something much much bigger than what we promised, and we'd either end up working for free or the client would end up angry and walk away.
Oh, that's clever! A press release is going to be much better than any acceptance test or design document. I can't believe I've never heard of anyone else doing it that way!
As a freelancer I think overall, clients prefer fixed prices over hourly rates. I take this approach, if project takes less than 10h I bill per hour otherwise I offer different packages and add-ons. Say client wants a fairly big responsive site with WordPress backend etc:
---- Essential ----
* Basic site (static, up to 5 pages)
* 8 extra pages
* WordPress + Blog
* Mobile/Responsive Layout
* Social Media Integration
* Usability, feedback by professionals
* Basic SEO
---- Additional ----
* Maintenance 24/7
* Setup server and domain
These packages have a fixed price that has been pre-estimated in hours. Obviously not every project is them same, so sometimes you work more and sometimes less that what was quoted. For out of the ordinary features such as complex grids, user profiles or highly dynamic sites I estimate the extra work in hours as well and add it to the total cost.
Then I divide the project in 3 milestones: Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production. A 25% deposit must be payed after signing the contract, another 25% after Pre-Production and the rest on completion. The contact also clearly states that any major changes in layout, design or content after the Pre-Production phase will be quoted extra.
This has been working for me over the years. Clients seem happy with the process.
A word of advice. Never, ever set yourself up for this if you're a solo freelancer, unless there's 3 of you (or at a pinch 2).
The time the client needs this will be when you're a) on an airplane b) in bed with the flu c) on holiday d) having a romantic evening/weekend with your other half.
Nice money and the client likes it, but you have signed away your entire life in exchange.
Maintenance is a monthly fee, forgot to mention that. Sometimes clients do call in unfortunate situations, but they pay for that privilege. All additional services are opt-in.
Hourly rates undervalue consultants. It is a simple price based on quantity that we place on the front of customers, and have nothing to do with value, even more with relationship.
There is an awesome book about that. [1] It tells you how to set the right price and the right relationship with a customer. The philosophy is: firstly to show them the value you will provide, secondly to be able to set the right price, and thirdly the fusion of both with the contract. At the end, it is not a question to set an hourly rate and count the hours; it's about how much value you can give them, and set the right price. Then consultants build a contract with rules that reflect that (and protect them).
You have a lot of explanation inside with different chapters. It is a must read for me; even just the chapters that explain each ways to set price are a gem. You can easily adapt it to any business.
It is also similar to an post on HN some weeks ago. [2]
Charge whatever you can get away with. Set a number and show willingness to walk away.
I used to do cloud consulting from an LLC after doing client-facing enterprise AWS consulting.
Consulting experience TLDR braindump:
* Enterprise shops look down on people that don't charge enough.
* Some shops feel entitled to get a bunch of stuff for free. Hold your ground and explain you have bills to pay and can't set a new precedent. Your time is valuable.
* Free assessments are an easy way to determine how much crap and hand-holding you'll have to deal with. It'll also let you show you know what you're talking about and be able to
* Research solutions before raising proposals. Anything you raise will basically be put on you to support.
* Raise prices every year or two. It'll be less of a surprise if it's a fairly regular thing and it's mentioned ahead of time.
* Work on- vs. off-site has +s and -s.
* Work with fun clients that pay on-time and don't do hourly. Hourly is for noobs that take too long. Milestone-based at the same comfortable hourly rate puts the onus on you to always deliver.
* Getting a % of the milestone upfront for a good faith deposit.
* Don't do Net 30 or + ever... Collecting will be a hassle. Net 10 -2%, 15
* Master agreement
* Put milestones in writing to be clear. (Contracts are only as good as the relationships on which they are written.)
* Engage with the highest ranking person you can, and you'll more or less own the place. (Just don't get too cocky, instant hubris.)
My rule of thumb is take what you'd expect at a full-time job and divide by 1000. So, if you'd make $130k in salary, charge $130/hr for that work as a freelancer.
When clients ask you why, the answer I give is that professional services people typically bill about 1000 hours a year. The rest of the time goes to sales, marketing, learning new tools, and other non-billable work.
That said, once you are consistently busy, you should raise your rates, just like the article says. When clients ask you about that rate, just say, "Well, that's what other new clients are paying." Nobody can really argue with that.
I've also found a lot of value in having a high headline rate that I discount when I actually want the work.
Another formulation of that rule of thumb is double the per-hour salary (equivalent since there are roughly 40 * 50 = 2000 working hours in a year). $130K/yr salary -> $65/hr salary, so you should charge 2 * $65/hr = $130/hr
In the UK, my lowest rate is equivalent to $75 an hour. I can read and write code, but most of my work is documentation related. I, too, like to tinker around with my own projects, but tend to do that between gigs. I'd be delighted if I could work for 30 hours a week and spend the rest on my own projects.
That's the problem with working too many hours: you don't have any time to go look for other work and potentially charge more. It's very hard to get an existing client to pay more.
Yeah, you're right, but I'm stubborn. I won't move to where the work is - I have a family. I'm much much more productive if I'm actually interested in what the client is doing (... and that's hard to figure out) and I'm not particularly bothered about making top dollar - mid-dollar is OK by me.YMMV.
For finding any kind of freelance work: make lots of friends. The online clearinghouse sites are a great way to end up doing too much work for too little pay for a shitty client. Everyone needs work done or know someone who needs work done. Work the networking.
And I mean friends. You're not going to get business out of a guy you just met. You're probably not going to get business out of many people the first time they ask you. Never ask them if they have work they need done, let them complain about not being able to find someone, then mention you do that sort of work (whatever it is, if you're smart you can figure it out well enough to do better than the majority of people). Don't back down on rate, they might balk at first, but when things get dire for them and they still can't find anyone, they'll remember you.
Avoid debt like the plague. It'll make you a slave to a constant, regular income. I have constant, regular income, but I also know I have urges to take 3 months off at a time. Debt is the mind killer. It's a lot easier to face the prospect of losing a contract when you know you have 3 months before you need more money, not 1 week.
EDIT: and definitely lie to your in-laws about how much you work. A) Few people my own generation can get over "not having a good job", fewer still of the older ones. And B) they might think not working for a cluent means you're not busy and they can make demands of your time.
How long did it take you to land your first gig? This definitely seems like the way to go, but as you can imagine there is a heavy amount of luck involved with your process (i.e. if all of your friends are not associated with companies that need your skills, then you probably aren't going to find many offers).
I am currently on a sabbatical of sorts, and am keeping the option of doing freelance work as a way to extend it, but so far, all of the 'dude, this would be great for you' opportunities from friends haven't panned out. Part of the problem might be that I don't really need the work, so I haven't been following up too aggressively, but it still feels like I would probably have to go outside my network to land the first gig.
I stumbled into a lucky situation maybe 5 years ago. I posted a topic on a development forum mentioning my services and linking to a couple of examples. I received a few responses, people wanting work done for a couple hundred dollars, which would basically be a waste of time. Anyway, I get caught up with other projects, and a few months down the road someone sends me a message on AIM, saying they saw my post, and needed a quick project done in the next couple of days. Turns out they're a huge firm in New York with a bunch of Fortune 100 clients. Why on earth they sent me an instant message on some half-assed forum post, I'll never know. I ended up working for them for years and 80% of my work originated from them. It launched my career, and I quickly went from being a freelancer picking up scraps to working on big name projects and networking with tons of great people. All thanks to a random forum post, one of the few I ever posted during that time.
I think that is generally how it works. Big companies don't all operate through ossified HR departments, and even the ones who do still have rogue elements who are responsible for most of the productivity in the company. If anything, I'd probably make it a rule to only work with people who do not try to make me go through HR hoops to work for them.
I don't think of it so much as luck as "having many irons in the fire". None of the opportunities you will end up pursuing will be that good of a chance of coming through, we just kind of delude ourselves into thinking certain ones are better than others. It just becomes a game of stacking up enough low probability opportunities that eventually one of them comes through.
I was having lunch with a former colleague, and his cell phone rang. It was his boss "help! Two of our programmers just quit! Do you know anyone who could start, like, tomorrow??"
There is a market in the UK for good technical writers. It's not as sexy as development (whoever heard of a technical writer making the cut as a YC founder?) but it pays the bills. My own problem is that around 10 years ago, I veered off into business development and sales, and have been struggling to get back into the technical side of things ever since. I was OK at bizdev and sales, but I worked for fantasists unfortunately and it's left me with a bad taste.
Where do I get contracts from? The usual suspects - jobserve, networking, and various other places. I think it's probably worth pointing out that having had a well-completed LinkedIn profile for over 10 years, it's never brought me anything.
Edit: drop me a line - happy to help, heck, this might be the beginning of a technical writing dynasty! ropley at gmail dot com.
Here is another issue about not charging enough: clients don't respect you. You are the same exact person at $50/hr versus $500/hr, but a client will bend over backwards to make you happy at $500/hr, whereas they will walk all over you at $50/hr. You need to charge higher rates just to maintain a healthy relationship.
Has anyone ever increased the rate on their existing client by 30%+ before? How did it go?
Currently in a situation where a contract was offered to be extended again, but my roles have creeped way outside of coding/documentation into screencasts (which reqd purchasing a better machine + Adobe CS), engineering support, and sales trips in the future.
yes. just make sure you have another client ready to pay your current rate + X% and use that as leverage to increase your rate for your existing client to current rate + X% + Y%
I'm trying to charge $50 as a designer & developer.
I have many requests from US who are willing to pay this amount but they want me to be there, to meet personally first. Is that a common request or just an elegant way to say bye?
It's common but sort of an indicator of a project that is going to suck. There are outsourcing firms in the USA who are staffed entirely by remote workers and pay $50-$65 an hour.
That might still be worth it for everyone involved. The process of vetting good engineers and designers from overseas is very difficult, and potentially very expensive
In my experience the middle man (recruiting company) rarely gives a crap about the quality of workers, as long as the client is paying for the ones they find.
I can't believe people have asked me "how much do you want to make?" when giving me career/contracting guidance. I'm glad somebody else out there recognizes how silly that sounds.
I charge extra for anything I don't want to do. It's $300/hr for VB6, Crystal Reports, or MS Access stuff. I know the client can get someone else to do it cheaper. They frequently tell me as such, clearly missing the point that I want them to get someone else to do that shit. There is no way that stuff helps my long term development.
No, I don't stay 100% active with these prices. I have a steady 20 hours a week of work at $100/hr. Does that make me more or less rich than a person working 40 hours a week at $50/hr? Hard work is for suckers.
People complain about me being expensive until I release the first milestone. After that, they tend to shut up about the price. What's cheaper, a $25/hr developer from Croatia who takes 6 months to deliver the project, or a $100/hr developer who takes 2 weeks, with the added bonus that it actually works?
Something that always bothered me when I was a working stiff: I was always evaluated for pay based on how old I was, whether or not I was married with kids, and whether or not I owned my own house. No, no, no, you pay me based on what I can do, not on what I need. That's why (amongst many other ethics-related reasons) I consult now.