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Start with minimum wage for your first project. You're likely going to suck, and you don't want to piss off your family friend or have an awkward money discussi

• saluki 9y ago
  y, increasing your rate is a good idea. Don't start with minimum wage though. For early clients I liked to try to do things at a fixed fee that I had a good handle on how long it would take. With a fixed fee they can't see your hourly rate and won't raise a red flag if they are paying you more than they make. Some clients are really sensitive when they hear things like $50 or $100 per hour. For starting out I would target at least $20 per hour as your target hourly rate. Sounds like you have a bit of experience so you could probably go higher. Use this target hourly rate to set your fixed fee prices. As you gain more experience and get better clients and projects increase your hourly rate. You'll get faster at things too. So you can increase your rates over time up to $50/hr and $100/hr+. Learning Rails or Laravel to expand your skills and earning potential. Plus they make working on even small projects easier/faster. I'm a big fan of Laravel. Check out forge.laravel.com for setting up and deploying to VPS. Also break projects down in to phases. That way you don't have a large fixed fee phase that takes up too much time. For new/most clients get 50% up front and 50% upon completion for each phase. Create a simple contract that outlines the scope of work for each phase. If there are changes or additions make sure to send the client an addition to the scope of work with a price increase to approve for that phase.