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Ask HN: Should I charge companies that ask me to help them use my OSS?
Programming is a hobby for me, and not a profession. Nearly everything I do is publicly available on Github under MIT. One of my projects got popular and for the two past years, every week, I've been contacted by a different small company about how to use the project. This project is open-source and well-documented, but nevertheless they usually need help in understanding whether they should use it and how they can use it. I always email back a concise reply, a link to the documentation, and a proposition to Skype if they still have questions. Usually they want to Skype.
I find myself consistently chatting with these small companies to explain how my code works, helping them port code, and helping them run servers - but I've never charged any money. Should I be charging companies for my time in helping them with my OSS?
If "yes," I have more questions:
- What is a polite way of saying "Yes, I can assist, in return for payment"?
- Should I also charge students who inquire (there are 10x more inquiries from students than from companies)?
- Do I need my lawyer to draw up consulting contracts?
- What is a typical rate for this kind of thing?
I'd be happy to hear any anecdotal experience, or references to any materials that can help me with this question!
- onion2k 9y agoI don't think it's a question of 'should' or 'should not'. It's a completely free choice that anyone can make. There's nothing wrong with charging people for your time at all. You are not obliged to help people for free just because you created something popular.
- qrv3w 9y agoGood point, thanks.
- DigitalSea 9y agoA definite yes. Your time is valuable, they're already saving money and time by using your open source code, so there is no question about whether or not you should accept money for your time. >What is a polite way of saying "Yes, I can assist, in return for payment"? Just say something to the effect of: I would love to help. My hourly rates are $X.XX. Just be direct and professional with them. >Should I also charge students who inquire (there are 10x more inquiries from students than from companies)? It's your choice. Remember, your time is valuable. Can you afford to spend free time? >Do I need my lawyer to draw up consulting contracts? Speaking from personal experience, no. I've just found a freely available consulting contract online and tailored it to fit. >What is a typical rate for this kind of thing? I triple what I would get paid normally at my day job (to account for taxes and whatnot). The best advice I can give you is: don't be afraid to charge more than what you would for say a freelance project. Consulting is essentially you becoming a temporary employee of the company you are helping, you're writing code and doing other things an employee would (without the employee benefits).
- brudgers 9y agoRandom advice from the internet: 1. Initiate the conversation about payment yourself. Be straight forward along the lines of: + I enjoy spending time with you and your staff and would like to see the continued success of your company. + I believe that my consulting services will create significant value. + Here is my proposal. + Please let me know if you have any questions. However, I would not be surprised if the staff at the company acts offended (I would not be surprised if the did not, either). Some people rationalize the exploitation of another's goodwill and react negatively when the person of goodwill complains (though it is possible for a person to exploit another's goodwill unknowingly). Even in an established consulting business, sometimes clients must be fired. Good luck.
- shimon 9y agoI've worked as a consultant in software development and product management for a few years. There are a few things you should consider. One is how much you want to focus on this business. Maybe helping people for free is fun and you don't think there's enough demand to make you a significant amount of money. If you have a good day job and don't want to do extra tax paperwork for an extra $2000/year of income, it might not be worth it. On the other hand, if you've got real companies who need your stuff and you can make it much easier for them, you might have a high-value consulting offering. Try to ballpark the value you could create. For example, if a company typically spends one dev-month setting up your system, but you can help them get it done in a day, then you plausibly have a very high-value service worth several thousand dollars. If the challenges in your system tend to appear once it's in use at scale, and it has many large-scale users, then the value of expert help can be much higher. Assuming you do want to make a business around this, you should also explore what kind of business. People are contacting you for assistance, so selling assistance is one straightforward option. But maybe there are better solutions? For instance, if they're looking for help with deployment, maybe it makes sense to offer a hosted version they can just buy. If they're looking for integration with existing systems, maybe those integrations are something you can build -- custom initially, but with re-sale potential as future users want to integrate similar systems. Finally, similar to how you help students I also like to assist/mentor people starting new ventures. If I can help feel free to contact me at shimon@rura.org.
- qrv3w 9y agoThanks! Great points. I may contact you if I have some more questions.
- codegeek 9y agoFirst, never feel bad about charging for giving your valuable time to someone else. You are already helping for free by having an open source project. You can do 2 things: 1. Setup a public help forum and let the community help each other. You can also chime in whenever you have time to answer queries. Keep it public and keep it open. Free of charge. In open source projects, you may find other contributors willing to help as well. Use the forum for that. 2. Setup a "Professional Services" link on the website for your project. If someone reaches out to you specifically or says "I need more help",send them to that page which should list how you charge and what kind of help you can provide. Write it clearly and send people to that page if they are not satisfied with the public forum. The key is to setup a process around this and you can start directing people to either #1 or #2 above.
- qrv3w 9y agoGood ideas. I usually let Github Issues handle #1, usually if I don't answer within a few days someone else will :). #2 is great.
- segmondy 9y agoYou should absolute charge. If programming is not your profession, what is? You have more repos that most professional programmers I know. :D
- qrv3w 9y agoThanks. My profession is scientist - I study protein folding, a lifelong passion of mine! Programming became a hobby about four years ago.
- Mz 9y agoAs a general rule of thumb, consultants need to charge around twice as much per hour as the same work pays in a salaried position. So, if you think $15/hour is a reasonable rate for this "job," you should charge $30/hour. For a consulting gig, anything below $30/hour is basically slave wages anyway. Given that it is an OSS, it might be reasonable to charge anywhere from $50/hour to $200/hour. Since you have been doing this for free for some time, you should feel free to charge what you want. Anything is gravy at this point. You can keep it low as a favor to small businesses. Or you can jack it up to try to get people out of your hair. ;-)
- qrv3w 9y agoI'm seeing the 2x come up a lot, that's a good rule of thumb. Thank!
- mattbgates 9y agoIf you're good at something, never do it for free. Honestly, I used to offer plenty of my services for free, or I'd undercharge, and it is probably my own fault for letting it happen too often, but too many people took advantage of me and my services, and I got burned out and uninterested. So I charge everything for everything I do because aside from enjoying what we do, money keeps us motivated to be interested in this person or company's problems. The days of freebies from me are gone. So don't sweat it.. you need to be upfront about your worth per hour or per session. If they want your full attention, they'll pay for it. So answering your questions: You have to figure out how you charge. Per hour? Per session? Sending out an invoice? Accepting payment via Paypal? Establish your prices in the beginning and appear as a professional right from the start. For students, I suggest offering a "student discount" which might knock $5 off your hourly rate, so if you are charging $25/hr, you can get the total and discount it by 10% or whatever. While having a lawyer is always best, you can get by with some legal jargon on a website or in your document, but make sure YOU understand it. Keep it simple and state that you are providing services and your customer is responsible for making payments NET X days. You make your own price and your own value. Be reasonable. For example, for a company, you might be able to charge them $30/hr+, but helping an individual, you may have to charge a bit less. But this is up to you, of course. Look at your competition and similar salaries and figure out what you are willing to accept as your salary.
- qrv3w 9y agoThanks for sharing your experience! That's encouraging.