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2 years total of programming, the last year being the year I seriously committed to programming full time. The client is a one year old startup with a few tens

2 years total of programming, the last year being the year I seriously committed to programming full time. The client is a one year old startup with a few tens of thousands in sales since launch. I have built a picture converter from scratch that involves payment processing, client settings management, email capturing, so I feel very comfortable being able to do this. This one is live and online. Other than that, my experience is simply spending the last year and a bit of the year before learning Python, React, Redux and building projects with them but not releasing them all yet. It's not a ton of time, but I learn very quickly and don't see this potential project as that big of a challenge, given I've seen and done most of this stuff at least once before. The client and me are in Canada and this is all remote with a few progress update meetings here and there.

davismwfl 8y ago
Cool. A few comments with all that in mind. Contracting rates in Canada are not the same as the U.S., but my best estimate would be probably in the C$50-75 at the low to high end given your experience. $30 is a little too inexpensive, but to be fair $35-45 might be a good starting point for you to get some experience and raise your rate for the next gig. That is if you need to do hourly. I personally disagree with hourly and prefer weekly rates, or for longer gigs monthly even. It takes away the hours being the issue and makes results be more the focus. I would not flat rate anything given your experience level right now. Not that you are bad, but you need more time to gain experience with interpreting peoples requests for what they really mean vs what they say. In addition, estimating is hard as hell even for people with 10+ years of experience so it is a hard thing to do unless you have serious scoping and change management controls in place for flat rates. A complete app like this is likely more like 3-4 man months of effort depending on level of sophistication and 3rd party component usage. So that is more like 450-600 hrs, including writing all the tests and client testing etc. The MVP should be done pretty fast, and if the UX is already done and in HTML than I'd say you could cut a decent amount of time off this. While you feel pretty solid and comfortable in your skills, I would just be careful of the dynamic nature of a small company and changes they keep shooting your way etc. It can really chew your time up and you have to be super diligent about telling them this and pushing back or getting more scope/money for the extra work/changes. This is the biggest risk IMO, assuming you have all the skills to do all the work which I have no reason to question. No matter what, good luck and I hope you kill it!

davismwfl 8y ago

Cool. A few comments with all that in mind. Contracting rates in Canada are not the same as the U.S., but my best estimate would be probably in the C$50-75 at the low to high end given your experience. $30 is a little too inexpensive, but to be fair $35-45 might be a good starting point for you to get some experience and raise your rate for the next gig. That is if you need to do hourly. I personally disagree with hourly and prefer weekly rates, or for longer gigs monthly even. It takes away the hours being the issue and makes results be more the focus. I would not flat rate anything given your experience level right now. Not that you are bad, but you need more time to gain experience with interpreting peoples requests for what they really mean vs what they say. In addition, estimating is hard as hell even for people with 10+ years of experience so it is a hard thing to do unless you have serious scoping and change management controls in place for flat rates. A complete app like this is likely more like 3-4 man months of effort depending on level of sophistication and 3rd party component usage. So that is more like 450-600 hrs, including writing all the tests and client testing etc. The MVP should be done pretty fast, and if the UX is already done and in HTML than I'd say you could cut a decent amount of time off this. While you feel pretty solid and comfortable in your skills, I would just be careful of the dynamic nature of a small company and changes they keep shooting your way etc. It can really chew your time up and you have to be super diligent about telling them this and pushing back or getting more scope/money for the extra work/changes. This is the biggest risk IMO, assuming you have all the skills to do all the work which I have no reason to question. No matter what, good luck and I hope you kill it!