10 ms·
Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?
What are you averaging per year, as a freelance app developer?
- defarobot 9y agoI'm 1/3 of a three person dev. shop — does that count? We charge 250/person/hr and have been doing 40+ hr weeks for the last few years. We'll also make some margin if we need to sub out occasionally as client needs increase. This stability is really shaky though as all this work was from a single client.
- cronjobma 9y agoYou've been making 7-figures of a single client for a few years?
- k__ 9y agoHow do consulting shops charge so much? I mean, yes they got higher overhead than a single dev, but that's their own problem and not the problem of the client, so what's the difference fro a single dev here?
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoThe single dev isn't charging enough?
- k__ 9y agoLast time I told someone I want 100€ an hour he laughed at me. I charge per month, but it would be about 40€ an hour.
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoOTOH, the last time I told someone I wanted $200/hour, he said "if you can fix the problem today, I'll write you a check on the spot!"
- k__ 9y agoHaha, yes. A friend of mine took 80€ a hour but they only took like 20-30h a month. I charged per month, got paid below 80€/h but ended up with much more than him. But well, here are some people on HN who charge per hour AND get more absolute... so it's probably also a bit of luck?
- lojack 9y agoYou're asking a few questions here. I can answer from my experience working at a consulting shop that charged a lot of money... > Are they charging more because of overhead? Partially. There's overhead you wouldn't get with a single developer like office space and administrative overhead. A big overlooked piece of overhead is sales overhead. It's much easier to find 40 hours of consulting work a week than 120 hours of work. If its a premium development shop, the developer salaries are probably higher as well. This all may cut into the margins, but it doesn't really explain why they charge so much. > Why do they charge so much? Because they have clients who are willing to pay that much. Plain and simple. > What does the client get that they wouldn't with a single developer? Some companies are bad at finding and retaining talent. This includes contractors. They also might not know how to manage a project. For a lot of companies, they need something done, but this simply isn't their area of expertise. Some single developers can manage their own projects, but sometimes they need more than just a single developer. The workload may be much higher than what a single person could manage, and hiring 3 individual developers can be much less efficient than hiring a team of 3 developers who already work well together. Perhaps they need a designer as well, or they're looking for a project manager who is really good at communicating business needs with them.
- k__ 9y agoSo you're saying it's a team factor and a single dev can't get into that 200€/person/hour range?
- morgante 9y agoExperienced solo devs can get into the $200/hr range.
- lojack 9y agoI'd never attach a number to anything I said because its all relative, and I'd just be asking to be proven wrong. Like all things its pretty relative. There's teams that can charge more than developers and developers that can charge more as teams. The number you threw out doesn't seem unreasonable though.
- seibelj 9y agoI know a guy making $10-15k a month from his apps. He's a full time employee now, but when he had kids, he stayed home, taught himself android, and made apps for 5 years while his wife worked full time. Now they are in maintenance mode and print cash.
- aerovistae 9y agoWhat apps did he make? How did he make money off of them?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- seibelj 9y agoI don't want to reveal anything that might jeopardize his apps with competition (and therefore hurt his family's income). He made games (more like word games and puzzles than real-time) and monetized them with ads. One trick he did was to rebrand his existing games with different titles, graphics, etc. to create his own competition, so sometimes he owns multiple apps in the top results for the same game category. Very impressive.
- problems 9y agoIf you can come up with an interesting enough formula but with varied enough gameplay you can get some cool stuff. Kairosoft comes to mind and I'm sure they've really made bank on their games.
- sbov 9y agoRe-branding has always been an interesting thing to me, and the companies I work at (imho) underutilize it. I have friends who work in manufacturing, and all of their "competition" is made by their company, it's just branded towards different market segments.
- BartSaM 9y agoI see not many people want to associate their usernames with income info. I am a web app and mobile app developer and I make around $25K a year. This excludes any extra and side projects or gigs from other areas (marketing). I plan to increase this to $60K by starting doing niche projects soon and entirely focusing on development, but for now, I am focusing more on my side projects.
- jiblyyyy 9y agoVaries from 5 to 6-figures/y, working mainly for large companies, mostly in the edtech space. (http://jibly.com http://jibly.com)
- mthomasb 9y agoHey all, Matt from Bonsai (YC W16) here. We provide contracts, proposals, invoices, and other tools to freelancers, mostly developers and designers. We used our anonymized data to break out what freelancers earn with different experience levels, skill sets, locations, etc: https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates
- k__ 9y agoEurope plz.
- stingraycharles 9y agoWhy is Europe excluded ?
- 10dpd 9y agoHey Matt, love the idea but your rates for England are completely wrong. For an iOS developer in England with 3-5 years experience, the mode is £120-£140 per hour? Please show me one single contract advertised in England where the daily rate is £1k.
- HekaHouse 9y agoFrom 120-180k over the last 5 years or so, typically doing prototypes and MVPs for startups across platforms. Almost every project involves web servers, web clients and mobile clients. Mostly self taught but also studied cognitive engineering which has helped a lot in understanding how to create systems and work with AI.
- el_benhameen 9y agoIf you don't mind answering the usual questions, how'd you get your start, and how do you pick up clients?
- HekaHouse 9y agoA friend of mine invited me to help him start a non profit to apply natural language processing to detect violent rhetoric and bullying. This was while I was working as a utility programmer and going to grad school. While it never panned out for a number of reasons, it did get me introduced to the world of prototyping and I never looked back. There have certainly been times of instability and there is no one there to lend a hand most times which can be intimidating. One thing I try to do to get past the anxiety is make a new personal project when things get rough. So far it's worked out that those projects often lead to new opportunities and skills. Being able to write the device, server and web client myself allows me to build concepts rapidly.
- HekaHouse 9y agoThere are a lot of start up hubs in big cities, I recently started working with some of the people involved in creating these in Ohio and they are becoming my primary resource for work. Instead of considering projects as clients, I look for collaboration efforts where there is a path to equity. Regardless it almost always begins as some sort of contract for an initial trial collaboration.
- throwawaytree 9y agoI make $7 US dollars an hour designing and developing apps as a full-time employee. I’m paying off a new car, pay rent, and live quite a good life compared to others in my country (third-world country). Compared to other countries salaries, mine is awful. Compared to local salaries, it’s actually about 4x the minimum wage. The cost of living here is quite low (I pay 150$ per month for a single bedroom with bathroom). Where this kind of salary hurts is when: - traveling - buying online - saving for the future (maybe I will want to move overseas, and I also need savings for emergencies) - paying for study (courses, uni overseas) - buying work computers or phones - buying software or services (e.g. Photoshop, Sketch)
- manglav 9y agoAre you interested in any side work? I'm always looking for good freelancers. My email is in my profile if you want to get in touch.
- choward 9y agoSo where do you live?
- throwawaytree 9y agoSmall Latin American country, -4:00 UTC
- nickls 9y agoWhat do you build? I'm looking for talented freelance developers.
- throws12 9y agonow that you have revealed that you are from a third world country, cheapos in the first world countries will try to outsource work to you, which is very good IMO. But at the same time blaming third world programmers for taking their jobs. Pretty much like blaming China for taking the manufacturing jobs, but first world country people wanting things cheap products from Amazon.
- asow92 9y agoI work a full time iOS gig and do freelancing on the side. Typically I bring in an extra 10-20k per year at around $100 per hour depending on the job.
- chris_engel 9y agoI am a a web (app) developer - not sure if that counts :) Right now I am working as a frontend lead for react apps and make 75-80€ / hour. I am living in Frankfurt, Germany. There is a huge shortage of experienced javascript developers here.
- k__ 9y agoAre you doing this full-time (20days * 8hours * 75€ / month)? Are you charging per hour?
- chris_engel 9y agoYes and yes - I am working at my clients office mostly - around 1.5 days/week is homeoffice via remote desktop.
- k__ 9y agoAh, nice. I read charging per hour is bad. I charge per month, but I don't make 80€ per hour (also React stuff), haha.
- chris_engel 9y agoMy client wanted it that way. And they also pre-booked hours until mid of december. I guess they try what they can to keep talent.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bsvalley 9y agoApp freelancing (in the US) has been killed by cheap hourly rates thanks to globalization. As a client, why would I pay $100/h for a local Dev versus $10/h for a dev located in India or anywhere else where the cost of living is much lower? As a full time "app" developer I make $200K/y in the US. I tried freelancing on the side but it's pretty worthless. We're talking pennies by hour spent coding.
- throwawaycash 9y agothe money is in fixing broken apps delivered by cheap devs.
- zackify 9y agoBecause overseas code quality is, many times, atrocious. Communicating can be harder since there is a huge timezone difference. Just a couple reasons.
- huebnerob 9y agoI know many people who are doing very well in the mobile development freelancing space, at least in the NYC area. Many gigs are still onsite or at least benefit from some kind of physical presence, so if that's a factor, then it's a much more level playing field. I'm a full-time mobile developer as well. Haven't taken a crack at contracting yet myself, but I think that the key to success is a tried and true one: connections, connections, connections. If you're going on these freelance-farm type job sites, you're in a race to the bottom for poor quality gigs. Also, I've heard that it's pretty hard to 'get started on the side' because many decent contracts want more of your time than you can reasonably offer when you have a full-time gig. Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg problem with that, but I figure that's the risk of it.
- ProAm 9y agoBecause it will take you 10x longer to complete the project to a satisfactory level of quality. It's a typical 'Pay me now or pay me later' scenario.
- morgante 9y agoThis is not at all my experience. Companies pay a premium for full fluency in American cultural and startup norms. I have made well over $100/hr even with clients who I literally never met in person and sometimes even serviced from beaches in Asia.
- throwawaycash 9y agoI make about 0-300k/year fixing apps that others either weren't able to finish or where they architected themselves into scaling issues. Aside from that, I am a part time programming consultant who makes about 80k a year (I have a chronic illness so I spend a lot of time not working, and it's helpful for me to work in intense bursts with rests in between. It's difficult for me to have normal full time employment in the US because of the chronic illness.) It averages out to about $250k/year on 30/h/week
- neuronsguy 9y agoThis sounds cool. Two questions: 1. Without giving away secrets, how do you find such clients? 2. You must have some great stories. Would you care to share any?
- throwawaycash 9y ago1. I found my first few clients literally through happenstance -- people were describing problems they were having with enough clarity that my 20 years of dev experience made it fairly clear that the problems were recoverable. Now, I mostly find customers through referrals and by attending networking events and talking to people who sound like they have both money and problems. 2. My customers have the expectation of confidentiality. I will make these generalizable statements though: understanding ORMs and understanding SQL are related but not identical; CAP is hard; picking keys is hard; confounding your data model and your interface is painful for users; sharding is hard; pick UX libraries based on how consistent they are not on how new they are; developers that are producing 10x the code may not be producing 10x the value; if week on week, your project is consistently n/n+1 * 100% done, you have a estimation problem and just the fact that you're agile doesn't help with this; the whole point of tags was that not everyone agrees on categories; queuing theory is real; your spreadsheets aren't as consistent as you think; the fact that an engineer can figure out the bigO of a sort doesn't mean they understand efficiency in real life.
- throwawaycash 9y ago(2 cont) your PM may only be paying attention to the user interface and not what lies beneath it; changing plans all the time isn't agile, it's just chaos; you have to keep an eye on whether you're doing TDD or just architecting mocks; n+1 queries are hard once you start encountering real data sizes.
- bintreethrow 9y agoI have 3 API services, 2 desktop apps & 3 iOS+Android apps that I have developed over the course of 7 years after my CS engineering degree in a third world country, pretty much like the @throwawaytree here. My earnings are at average rounded converted to 6000 USD/month less server/misc. costs. I live with my parents(no rent) in a village in this state in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala . I am 29. I think I have enough savings for a lifetime and most of the revenues are on auto pilot.
- spraak 9y agoHow are your apps and services monetised?
- srednalfden 9y agoWhat technology did you build them all with?
- amingilani 9y agoI don't want to share my exact rate, but I easily make a month what a Silicon Valley engineer at a seed startup can.. and since I live in a developing country it's an order of magnitude more than most people my age. If you're a brilliant engineer and are looking to work for a freelance app developer, I recommend Toptal[1]. While I now work at Toptal, I first joined the company through their freelance network, got a project with one of their clients, and eventually was onboarded onto the company itself. My experience with them started as someone that "wanted to work for international clients out of Pakistan" and it was brilliant. I whole-heartedly recommend joining Toptal for freelancers looking to get something going on the side. You can choose your own rate, so you can go as low as $10, or go as crazy as, jeez, I dunno, $500.. although the higher you are, the more difficult it is to land a client. [1]: Toptal Referral link: https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected-software-architects https://www.toptal.com/#contract-just-respected-software-arc...
- simon83 9y agoFrom their website[1]: The Top 3% "Everyone at Toptal has a proven track record and elite industry experience. There are Toptalers from Wharton, MIT, CERN, and Google, as well as Django committers, Top 100 Rails contributors, leading global designers and art directors, professors, founders and more." Holy crap man I'm not even going to bother, I'm none of that. Impostor syndrome intesifies [1] https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent https://www.toptal.com/top-3-percent
- amingilani 9y agoDon't let that get to you, they have an intense screening process but after you pass it, that's just it. I'm 25, I have a degree in Economics and Finance, and no formal computer education. All I have is my self-taught experience. The first time I tried, for all my confidence, I flunked it really bad, which came as a shock to me. I mean, I knew I was good. The recruiter gave me a timeout and said I could reapply later. The next time I'd studied my butt off, solved advanced level coding exercises and reached 4 Kyu on codewars.com At that point, I breezed through the exercises, and when I was asked to build a live project, I had fun learning and creating my first React web app.. I'd been meaning to learn React, but never had time before. Of the dozens (dozens!) of people I've referred to Toptal none have passed the screening process. However, I strongly believe it's because they didn't push through it. I know the screening process itself can be beat if you take the time to improve yourself. Besides, on the other side of the screening process is the greatest community of Ninja developers I've ever seen in my life! Anything I have trouble with, I can discuss on our community chat. I've never been part of a community like this before. And the clients are absolutely brilliant, since Toptal screens clients too!
- jasonswett 9y agoFor the last few years I've made a little over $100K/year. This is mostly from doing staff-aug-style Ruby on Rails programming at $100/hr. This year I've transitioned into a mix of coding and training. From training I've earned between $5,000/week and $13,000/week.
- bkovacev 9y agoHow did you switch into training?
- jasonswett 9y agoI wrote about it here: https://www.jasonswett.net/how-i-got-started-in-training/ https://www.jasonswett.net/how-i-got-started-in-training/
- cronjobma 9y agoHow does 'training' look like. You give in-person workshops? Sell online courses?
- jasonswett 9y agoIn-person workshops, usually 3-day or 5-day classes for big companies.
- testb 9y agoCollege student, doing Android + light backend work. ~80/90/hr. Caveat is that I've only had 1 client so far.
- newbear 9y agoHow did you end up getting that rate?
- testb 9y agoI had a previous relation with him and knew that they were getting quotes from other mobile agencies in the area. Given that info, I knew I could comfortably name <$100/hr and still be the cheapest. Of course it also helped to have the relevant experience/portfolio. I also prototyped a few wireframes (1 user flow) for free which gave me a leg up because he knew what I had in mind regarding the project.
- ne0free 9y agoI had one client, he paid me 65-70$ for scraping escort sites.. He had it coded from some one in portugese, it was pho scraper.. So i added 7 more sites .. and finally i quit becoz i was not getting private time .. every time there were people arround me Btw i am from india.. ne1 looking for freelancer (php, nodejs, go, etc..) can get in touch..
- chuck32 9y agolol what do you mean by "not getting private time"?
- drchaim 9y agoThis threads make me mad. In a theorically developed country making about 10€/h from freelancing as a side job. Mostly web with Python/Django and frontend.
- morgante 9y agoWhy does it make you mad? If you're decent, you can definitely charge more. Feel free to email me if you want tips on upping your rates: me@morgante.net
- chuck32 9y agoDamn! Not sure exactly which country you're in but the minimum wage of most western european countries is between €8-10 / hr. There are cleaners who make the same money as you! Seems like you've got to up your game. Don't get mad though, take this as a lesson and learn from it. If anything this should be good news because now you know you can earn way more than you are currently for the same exact work.
- b_zak 9y agoI live in France. Beside my work, I take 4 weeks a year o teach software development (AngularJS, Spring, Struts, Apache CXF,...). The rates in France start at 300€/day (7hours). Additionally, I develop apps (APIs, AngularJS apps, etc.) 10 to 20 hours a week (evenings + weekends) with rates starting at 35€/hour.
- juanpotato 9y agoI'll tell you once I get any clients :(
- jibreel 9y agoI do Web and API for apps. while my rate is 20$/hour i most often end up with a per-project price.
- dmilicic 9y agoI'm an Android and Ruby on Rails dev and I've been working as a freelance for a couple of years now. I am making quadruple the amount my peers are making in Eastern Europe while working less hours and remotely. Most clients I get is through networks such as Toptal, which I would wholeheartedly recommend. I'm also a member of Gigster, which I can't quite recommend at the moment, and there is CodeControl and Povio labs which I would also recommend. I think the best approach is to sign up for a number of these networks. It will definitely kickstart your freelance career and will help you have a constant stream of potential projects and offers. However, do avoid websites such as Upwork or other networks which don't have a technical interview process as these are very likely flooded with extremely low-wage and/or low-quality workers. It is much harder to land a good client on these websites. Here's my Toptal referral link: https://www.toptal.com/#work-with-the-best-programmers-today https://www.toptal.com/#work-with-the-best-programmers-today But again, don't just apply there :)
- sdiq 9y agoJust asked someone else this question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14795245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14795245. Maybe you could also give your perspectives on the same.
- jfmandroid 9y agoThe rates vary a lot depending of where the freelancer is located. From the most expensive to the more cheapest (in general): - US & UK - West Europe - Est Europe & Latin America - Middle Est & Asia In Latin America the rates normally go from 20 to 40 USD per hour depending of experience.
- simon83 9y agoI'm not freelancing, but I'd love to hear advice from other freelancers. I have 11 years working experience as a full stack web developer and I think I'm pretty good at it by now. I'm currently employed and underpaid, and I live in Germany. I have no idea how I'd go about freelancing. What would be your advice to get me started?
- dmilicic 9y agoI actually wrote a comment which may help you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791665
- simon83 9y agoThanks a lot! I saw toptal mentioned in another comment, and their "Why 3%" page is quite unnerving. I don't work at Wharton, MIT, CERN, or Google, and I'm not a Top 100 Django or Rails contributor. Or is this just the 3% of the 3%, and the remaining 97% are more mortal?
- morcutt 9y agoLast year ~115k. If I was actively seeking clients all year, I could get that number up much higher. I want to work on side projects though. That was with a 40/hour a month retainer and one big job that lasted ~5 months.
- rrrrrraul 9y agoRetainer, that sounds like an awesome setup. How many years have you been freelancing?
- chuck32 9y agoIn the UK (not in london) as a freelancer in Ruby on Rails I charge £40 / hr. For contract jobs (you basically work exactly like a permanent employee but get paid as a freelancer - so no job security or benefits and contracts usually last 3 months - 1 year at most) i was paid between £300-350 / day. In London it seems the same type of jobs usually pay £400-450.
- srednalfden 9y agoHow is the market for Rails outside London? I've seen a few comments that said it's hard to find work outside the capital.
- chuck32 9y agoIn Manchester there are plenty of opportunities for rails work. Also companies around here seem a lot more flexible about semi remote working i.e. you commute from Manchester to Liverpool/Sheffield/Leeds etc. once a week but work from home the rest of the time. In London remote working seems to be frowned upon and will at most be one day a week from home.
- bhyam 9y agoThe site Codementor just did a survey of 5,000+ freelance app developers to see how much they made in different countries across the world. The U.S., New Zealand and Australia had the highest average hourly rates at $70/hr, and Northern Africa had the lowest at $41/hr Here's the full article: https://www.codementor.io/blog/how-much-do-freelance-developers-cost-around-the-world-2626eu0rzy https://www.codementor.io/blog/how-much-do-freelance-develop...
- mattlohkamp 9y agoI'm charging $75/hr for web app programming work, as a freelance front end developer, in a lead dev role. I'm working in Angular, Node.js, and using an Electron wrapper to adapt our web app to the desktop. The project is a sales tool for a big tech brand. I work from home, my coworkers are rad, and my boss is an angel. This is the best contract dev position I've ever had, possibly the best I ever will have.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- duby 9y agoAs database consultant/developer I can go from 60$/h to 170$/h.