I think what you have is a misunderstanding of the market. 400 Euro isn't going to get you more than maybe half a days work (a day for a long engagement, for so

I think what you have is a misunderstanding of the market. 400 Euro isn't going to get you more than maybe half a days work (a day for a long engagement, for someone who's billing mid-tier[1] simply due to the economics of freelancing. You're paying both ends of FICA/SS so that's (-) ~17% federal immediately of whatever he's taking in. For US freelancers, you're paying for down-time between clients and meetings that won't convert into any work. SuperDeveloperGuy (regardless of his nationality) is going to have a full book, and as such will be able to command a higher rate than random-(any-ethnicity-guy-with-less-than-desirable-experience). The reason why we bill out at lawyer rates is because our labor patterns are similar. HN has a freelancer thread you can check. I've used it before. I generally discriminate based on the quality of their comments (a subjective metric, admittedly) as well as how long they've been a HNer. Keep in mind college kids are getting 35/hr minimum at any summer co-op, so again, 400 EUR won't get you very far. RE: Elance, et al -- On Upwork I've had great experience with the Eastern Europeans/Russians who have tons of feedback (is it still racism if it's a positive stereotype? hmm). [1] (Personally a client approaching me with a rate in that range is price-signaling to me "I'm going to brow-beat you for every dime"; somewhat counter-intuitively the quality of clients I've had has increased as a function of the rate at which I bill. Once I crossed the 3-figures-an-hour-threshold people started taking my time a lot more seriously.)