Freelancing hourly rates
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
It depends on skill rarity/demand. So in the city of London, C++ with knowledge of finance you would be getting a lot more than that. Elsewhere in Europe that would be considered very good. So, whats the job, where is it (even if its remote, where is the client based) and what technologies are you going to be using?
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
I don't know about EU, but in USA, most full time employees get benefits nearly equal to their pay. So if you work as a contractor, you should expect double the pay (no benefits) compared to being employed permanently. You are saving them money by doing a job and then leaving when its over. That is why you can charge the extra money. Since contracting is not always stable, you have to make sure your income covers you to that next job. Even if this is just part time and you have another job, the principles are the same IMO. If you are dead set on establishing a low rate to remain competitive, just do so until you have gained a strong reputation. Pualee
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norm .net wrote:
Poor, Take away tax, NI, etc holidays, sick cover. You obviously never contracted then?
Looks like has has a fulltime job and this is extra work. If it helps him build a reputation, it might be a good start.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
My latest book : C++/CLI in Action / Amazon.com link -
I am a member of the perm employed, £40K pa 25 days and sick, Comp Car and Bupa. and yes, I need a pay rise and a couple more days! :)
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
Dalek Dave wrote:
I am a member of the perm employed, £40K pa 25 days and sick, Comp Car and Bupa.
Not bad going with the skills you gained, I gathered you were still learning c#. Well it looks like I'm due for a payrise as well.
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
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It depends on skill rarity/demand. So in the city of London, C++ with knowledge of finance you would be getting a lot more than that. Elsewhere in Europe that would be considered very good. So, whats the job, where is it (even if its remote, where is the client based) and what technologies are you going to be using?
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
The job is desktop application in .Net, no financial or other expertise required and the client is in Switzerland.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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The job is desktop application in .Net, no financial or other expertise required and the client is in Switzerland.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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digital man wrote:
third-world city like, oh, say Paris
I agree, third world, dirty, full of parisians and expensive coffee! Beautiful though, the sunset from the top of the Sacre Couer in Mont Matre is special!
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
I have not been to Paris since a football tour more years ago than I care to remember. I don't count the bloody awful trip to Euro Disney. Mickey Mouse is not French!
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I don't know about EU, but in USA, most full time employees get benefits nearly equal to their pay. So if you work as a contractor, you should expect double the pay (no benefits) compared to being employed permanently. You are saving them money by doing a job and then leaving when its over. That is why you can charge the extra money. Since contracting is not always stable, you have to make sure your income covers you to that next job. Even if this is just part time and you have another job, the principles are the same IMO. If you are dead set on establishing a low rate to remain competitive, just do so until you have gained a strong reputation. Pualee
Pualee wrote:
If you are dead set on establishing a low rate to remain competitive, just do so until you have gained a strong reputation.
That's what I'm after. I would really like this contract, to built up a reputation as I don't have any for contracting work so far. I want to be a feasible option for the client taking into account my lack of references in contracting as well.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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Charge them 50 euros an hour. If they bulk, you can always adjuct it a bit.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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Dalek Dave wrote:
I am a member of the perm employed, £40K pa 25 days and sick, Comp Car and Bupa.
Not bad going with the skills you gained, I gathered you were still learning c#. Well it looks like I'm due for a payrise as well.
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
Ah, I am not employed as a programmer/developer. I am a company accountant. I am learning c# as I do some developement stuff in house. (Also I am learning so as to NOT be an accountant any more. I want to live in NZ and run a bar and cook. But until that happens, not being an accountant is my next ambition). :)
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
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Well it's a part time thing. I'm still keeping my current job, but doing this project aside as a source of extra income. It involves rewriting an existing application they have.
norm .net wrote:
You obviously never contracted then?
Not exactly. I've been involved in a few projects as a freelancer but was not in a direct relation to the client. I was subcontracted by an outsourcing company (in Romania) so you can imagine the rates were pretty low.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Mircea Grelus wrote:
It involves rewriting an existing application they have.
In that case I would ask for more than for creating a product from scratch as you will be most likely dealing with undocumented source code, bugs that the original developer left, having hard time understanding why he chose that path and not the other (what the hell was he thinking?!), etc. This is a conclusion I came to after I got my last maintenance job, I will definitely be charging more for these.
Kind regards, Pawel Krakowiak Miraculum Software[^]
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The job is desktop application in .Net, no financial or other expertise required and the client is in Switzerland.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Switzerland and no Financial Expertise? :)
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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Ah, I am not employed as a programmer/developer. I am a company accountant. I am learning c# as I do some developement stuff in house. (Also I am learning so as to NOT be an accountant any more. I want to live in NZ and run a bar and cook. But until that happens, not being an accountant is my next ambition). :)
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
Dalek Dave wrote:
I want to live in NZ and run a bar and cook.
Good luck. Sounds fun. :) Sometimes I'd rather do that than what I do. Throw away computer and... become a traveler or something.
Kind regards, Pawel Krakowiak Miraculum Software[^]
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Go for more. You need to be well paid for the pain of doing this on the side and not having a private life while it gets done.
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Mircea Grelus wrote:
Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap?
Way to cheap if you are good at what you do. But, I understand the motivation of wanting to build a strong reputation.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - -Lazarus Long
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So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Mircea Grelus wrote:
What's your hourly rate?
$84 US
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Well it's a part time thing. I'm still keeping my current job, but doing this project aside as a source of extra income. It involves rewriting an existing application they have.
norm .net wrote:
You obviously never contracted then?
Not exactly. I've been involved in a few projects as a freelancer but was not in a direct relation to the client. I was subcontracted by an outsourcing company (in Romania) so you can imagine the rates were pretty low.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Mircea Grelus wrote:
Well it's a part time thing. I'm still keeping my current job, but doing this project aside as a source of extra income.
Then it should actually generate extra income. I still have my day job as well, though I no longer have time for overtime at work. The overhead associated by contracting your time should be fully/completely compensated. Your day-job work is selling you at a higher right, giving you a portion in wage, and keeping the rest to compensate for your benefits. Generally you want to start 50% to 100% above your earned income wage from your day-job. Should the other ever increase in time and take over from your day-job, you could find yourself making half the money because you switched to contracting full time, and that would be a shocker! Just because you are keeping your day-job doesn't mean you should sell yourself short!
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Mircea Grelus wrote:
So I'm guessing you think it's not that cheap?
Not cheap, Peanuts.
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
True. If we quote too less, then some of the stingy fellows might resort to an exploitation spree. At least for freelancing spectrum in India, I could give a good number of examples on this.
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A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson -
So with the move from Eastern Europe to the Western side, and with my first freelance project on the horizon it's time to update my hourly rates and I'm curious as to what hourly rates do other freelance CPians use. I want to be fairly cheap for this project and I was thinking at Eur 25 /hour. What do you think? Too expensive? Too cheap? What's your hourly rate?
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
The length of the contract is a big factor. The time it takes you to find contracts between contracts needs to be factored in to your hourly rate. I use a spreadsheet and call the length of a contract "risk" that way I know how many weeks on average I will be looking for a contract with contracts of that nature. I then subtract the hours from 2080. Then I subtract paid time off from the remainder. 6 month contracts probably will leave you with a little more than 1600 billable hours for a year. The remainder of your time will be spent with advertising and soliciting work. (And continued education training, conferences are important as well as some vacation). Divide the annual income you want by 1600, let's say you want to make 100k per year USD that would be 62.50 per hour. Now add 7.5% self-employment tax if you are 1099 or Corp-Corp for the Fica difference and you get $67 per hour. Of course now you need benefits, lets just say 15k per annum for Health care, Retirement and a good conference. Add $9.50 per hour. Thats $76.50 per hour. Now the real killer, travel. To make travel numbers more realistic divide its total for a year by 2080 because you will not travel when not working (in theory). If you flew on-site every week and came home you could maybe, maybe do it all in $30k or $14.50 per hour. This leaves your grand total for a 100k salary at $91 per hour. Since the average income for developers in the States is between 70k and 120k no matter where you live I think the consulting industry is grossly underpaid for our filed, at least for independents; considering the vast majority of advertisements are for $55 an hour.
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