18 ms·

Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

• W0lf 4y ago
  100 EUR/hour although I don’t bill per hour but per day. This is without VAT and for Germany, but I charge the same for clients from other countries as well.
  • topnde 4y ago
    Hi, do you add VAT on top of that? Also, do you count a day as 8h or how does it work?
• pankaj4u4m 4y ago
  I am reading so many things about freelancing here. I wonder how to even start freelancin? I am a SE.
• LouisSayers 4y ago
  Had a part time gig in Aus $140ph for 5h per week of pure coding - which is prob more like 8-10h equivalent at a full-time job. Fullstack RoR at a small startup.
• Snowtire 4y ago
  I charge 400/h for consulting, specializing in high scale distributed systems. When I'm charging that much I'm not doing the work, companies bring me on for 2 or 3 hours a week to set directions and tech goals as well as solve the problems they've been trying too but can't
  • ishyfishyy 4y ago
    How do they find you?
• ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  May I ask where you find clients?
  • qorrect 4y ago
    Same question here.
  • TbobbyZ 4y ago
    It’s all organic. Salesforce is hot right now. Mostly LinkedIn.
    • vultour 4y ago
      Do you contact potential clients or do they contact you?
      • TbobbyZ 4y ago
        They contact me.
  • atemerev 4y ago
    Usually my previous clients tell somebody about me. I work in a relatively niche area.
  • xeromal 4y ago
    Mine are all just referrals from past coworkers and clients. The first one is the hardest.
• joshenders 4y ago
  1/1000 of what I would accept as a yearly salary
  • ryannevius 4y ago
    This is really interesting. What's the reasoning? It turns out this is _very_ close to my own rate, by chance.
    • danielheath 4y ago
      There's a little under 2000 working hours in a year of fulltime work; you can charge approx double to cover your cost of sales / offer flexibility.
      • biztos 4y ago
        Am I missing something, or do you not have any vacation?
        • rolisz 4y ago
          Paid vacation still counts towards your "work hours", because your employer pays for them.
          • pdonis 4y ago
            But if you're a contractor, you don't have an employer, so you have to divide the total amount you want to make in a year by the actual hours you expect to work, which won't include time off, since your clients won't be paying you for time off.
            • wishinghand 4y ago
              I think that's the idea by diving by 1000. The math is assuming that you won't work half the time.
        • 4y ago
• a_square_peg 4y ago
  I think this might also depends on the duration and the nature of the contract work but perhaps you can consider increasing your rate as a way of filtering out jobs when you start getting more jobs than you can handle.
  • doctorhandshake 4y ago
    This is advice I give contractor friends frequently. Too busy? Raise your rate until you are winning fewer jobs but making the same amount. Or working less for more money. My observation having gone through this several times over 15+ years of contracting: perhaps counter-intuitively, the clients you retain and the new ones you acquire at your increased rate will treat you and your time with more respect. I don’t have a solid unifying theory on why this is beyond that your rate as compared to expectations is directly correlated with clients’ impression of your value.
    • halkony 4y ago
      I think your observation is correct. You might be interested in reading "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Cialdini. In the first chapter, he describes a souvenir shop in New Mexico that had trouble selling inventory. The owner just couldn't sell her jewel necklaces. The owner went on vacation, and told the clerk to cut all the prices in half (far below their value). When she came back, she learned the clerk misheard her and doubled all the prices... and all of them sold out! Tourists at the stop didn't know how to recognize necklace quality on their own, so they used the price as the next most reliable indicator of quality. I imagine it's similar with companies that see software as beyond their expertise.
• samwillis 4y ago
  I would be particularly interested in hearing what "Full Stack Developers" charge in the UK. I recently started doing freelance/contract work but I'm not really sure what others similar to me change. (I'm particularly experienced (15 years) in Python/Django, JS/Vue, UI/UX)
  • lhnz 4y ago
    Back in 2020, I was able to make £800 per day doing outside IR35 work. Similar level of experience but in TypeScript, React and Node. Working for an investment bank at the time; however you can get similar rates when working as a Tech Lead. At this rate, I was slightly outside of the normal range at lots of places. It helps if there is a Managing Director that knows you're decent as they can help to sign-off on higher rates. Unfortunately I found this almost impossible to regularly achieve because it takes time to build your network and show your worth. Having to constantly start again with zero reputation at every workplace I go to was one of the reasons I decided to stop contracting. The other reason was the downturn in the contractor market caused by the possibility of IR35 enforcement and the reaction to this by big risk-adverse companies.
    • Silhouette 4y ago
      I'm impressed that you managed to get an outside IR35 role with an investment bank in 2020. The rate looks decent or even a little above average for the industry as you say. However IME 100% of big financial firms went umbrella to avoid the IR35 risks that were about to arrive (even if those risks then got deferred by a year) so in reality what they were offering was more equivalent to something in the low £600s outside IR35. Getting £800 for an outside gig would have been a good win at that time.
      • lhnz 4y ago
        I was still on an outside IR35 contract up until October 2020, and then on another at a financial firm on a slightly lower rate until April 2021. You are right though, that it was getting more and more difficult around then. At the first firm they stopped granting outside IR35 contracts during 2020, but were able to grant extensions if one was requested by somebody in leadership however eventually the extensions themselves were only allowed to be one week at a time so I left.
• simonw 4y ago
  The best advice I ever got about freelancing was to increase my rate for every job and keep on doing that until people refused to hire me. How else can you figure out what you're worth?
  • more_corn 4y ago
    This is a good way to burn your network. A better way might be to estimate your value and play around a little bit at the top end. A previous comment about having a high rate for jobs you don’t really want is clever.
  • goethes_kind 4y ago
    Would that not end up hurting your reputation after a while?
    • whalesalad 4y ago
      only with the now 'cheap' clients :) at some point you are in a different league. gotta keep moving and growing. but in actuality, no, unless you have a social group where all your old clients get together and mingle. my clients do not know the other ones exist, for the most part.
    • WhatsName 4y ago
      Would you want a 10.000USD or the 30.000USD surgery? There is a paradoxon that people associate costs with quality. High rates never hurt anyone, given that they actually deliver on it.
      • dewey 4y ago
        > Would you want a 10.000USD or the 30.000USD surgery? I'd like to have the 0USD surgery, but maybe that's just my inner European.
        • treeman79 4y ago
          We don’t have a VAT tax. Free just means you pay with other peoples money while they pay with yours.
• 0x5345414e 4y ago
  My rate is 165 USD/hr, but I’ll drop it as low as 135 for a long contract (6 months+). I do custom software for the refrigeration industry (mostly simulations, sensor data logging, a lot of web apps, etc.). But yeah like another poster mentioned, I just raise it every time I work with a new customer. Imo hourly rates are kind of bogus because not every hour is the same and hours can’t determine value. Generally I negotiate a weekly rate @ 35 hrs / week and try to deliver something valuable every week. The amount of hours I actually work in a week varies.
  • TbobbyZ 4y ago
    How do I get into your work?
    • devoutsalsa 4y ago
      You have to be pretty cool.
      • lostlogin 4y ago
        No, you have to be trying to be cool.
      • xwowsersx 4y ago
        I see what you did there. When my fridge stopped working, I didn’t think it was cool.
        • czbond 4y ago
          Mine was the compressor last week. Daggum LG
          • nebula8804 4y ago
            Don't be so cold...at least it wasn't a Samsung...
    • halkony 4y ago
• ddevault 4y ago
  $250/hour for senior engineers and $150/hour for more junior contributors.
  • aconsult1 4y ago
    Which location are you seeing those rates?
    • ddevault 4y ago
      We're all-remote and take international clients, and charge the same rate everywhere.
• kevinsky 4y ago
  In Canada contractors who work for the recruiters who supply resources to the Canadian government can expect these kind of rates: Experienced DBA ~$80/hour System Analyst/Platform Analyst ~100/hour Security Assessor or Practitioner from $115 to $125/hour Front end developers who know a JavaScript framework, Power BI developers and anyone with cloud experience are in demand at top rates. Then there are the gold ring jobs that pay over $200/hour. An example might be a subject matter expert on deploying Splunk, CyberArc or Sailpoint at an enterprise level. Usually you are working for a name brand consulting firm. The recruiters add 30% to your rate and pay you net 30. Direct contracts with the government are possible but tend to be more short term
  • honkdaddy 4y ago
    What would application or full-stack engineers expect to charge? I'm Canadian and have often wondered about who's behind the broad spectrum of quality in our country's online offerings.
  • motohagiography 4y ago
    Spent many years in this game, and Canada is so public sector heavy as a market, that the govt consulting rates become defacto institutional rates. There are only like 5 banks. The system runs on "vendors of record," where govt uses contracting agencies as a layer to keep people arms length and not employees - but also the vendors handle payments, insurance, recruiting, etc. If you want to make real money in Canada, you get out of the talent/delivery side and into scaling as a VoR where you run consultants and just handle the money. That's true everywhere, but this general contractor model defines most tech companies in the country. The only reason I don't do it it because I'm a nerd who likes to solve problems. My rates aren't for the value of my time, it's for the value of my clients' time and how much of it I yield for them in short conversations that save entire teams weeks of burn sounding things out for themselves, or that provide the insight that moves much larger decisions. I'm not rich, but it gives me the freedom to manage my time to focus on my myriad other intense interests. In terms of rate, learn negotiation to discover how to make the best quality deals you can independent of top line numbers, and having opinions about it without having read the foundational works is as naive as it sounds. I don't do hourly anything anymore unless I've been on the bench and have to take something (always say yes when you've been on the bench, just take the money). Flat rate is great if you can get it (private sector only), but in between is a day rate that you bill at a minimum of 1 or a 1/2 day because when you have more than one client (e.g. not just a job) you need to price in the opportunity costs of working for one client over the other. Context switching is opportunity cost. It's not on you to get better at it for anyone, it's an economic factor you have to price in to generate positive yield on your time. Also, there is a stupid-consultant pattern where they say, "I only do X" or "I only do day rates." and leave it hanging as a challenge to the recruiter, who very rationally will call your bluff. The correct way is, "I achieve these outcomes, and most of the time in orgs is spent waiting for things to happen, so yes the day rate is high, but not only is it worth it in the time you get back with the right outcomes and answers, but the value is you aren't paying me to wait around all week for your people either." And that's how you add clients. I deliver so much value that my clients don't even see the money go, because there's pretty much nobody else available who is as interested in solving their problems as I am in my field. I do this because I love it. Consulting costs in institutions are estimated around the unit of an FTE (full time equivalent), which is about 250k/year in total cost to the client. How much the person delivering the work gets is invisible to the client, and most contractors don't know what their vendor's deal with the client is. That's why it's a business. If you are talking to someone hiring contractors, they're likely measuring their costs using this figure as an anchor. Where you lose is that 4mo's of lost income from being on the bench is immensely costly, and reduces your average cash flow over a 5 year period, etc. If you don't have a plan for the cash flow to invest it in something, you're much better off as just a regular employee.
• chrisweekly 4y ago
  My most recent bill rate was $177/hr for a LT gig, doing performance optimization and FE web arch. But I'm an outlier; $100/hr is a commonly-cited budget cap for similar contracts. Higher effective hourly rate is feasible w/ fixed-price / value-based projects (more "strategic consulting", less "contract worker"), but it entails risk.
• sixhobbits 4y ago
  I created a poll version of this here [0] to make it easier to vote and see a summary of responses. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32606904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32606904
• ricardonunez 4y ago
  Follow Jonathan Stark and listen to ditching hourly. At the time I triple my income instantly following his advice. He will change the way you think. The tech doesn't matter, you need to solve your client's problem. If it is painful and you have the right clients you can get a lot of money.
• whalesalad 4y ago
  Highly recommend this book (discusses rate/value a lot) for anyone doing software consulting: https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-Successfully/dp/0932633013 https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-Suc...
• nev4n2thisaccnt 4y ago
  $124 AUD/pH. Contact usually renewed with same company each year. DevOps admin/Microsoft stack -SharePoint -CRM -DotNet 80% of my time is spent automating with PowerShell
• ta238911 4y ago
  Between $50-$80, senior engineer and consultant.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • halkony 4y ago
    Not sure where you live, that seems pretty low for your seniority. I'm going into consulting so I'm curious: 1. Do you do it full time? 2. Do you get more clients than you can work for? 3. Are you comfortable financially?
    • ta238911 4y ago
      1. I work full time, on a set of projects 2. if all works out, I'm booked for the next 24 month straight - if I do not have clients' projects I have more than enough own projects to work on (I actually wish for some time off for years, but it never happened) 3. I do not live in the us, but in a rich economy and I am comfortable financially; compared to many people I know I live a simple life, why is probably why I do not need to charge $100+ or more - I'm in the top 10% wealth bracket already and looking forward to three more productive decades. I know people with way less experience charging more, but I'm in no rush.
• tpxl 4y ago
  I do backend Java development as a mid-senior engineer (~10 years of experience). I have a good grasp of SQL, git, Spring, ... I do 35€/hr in central/southern Europe, working for a local fintech company (2-3x what I'd get as wage). I plan on rising my rates later this year. I was in talks with a US company, and they balked when I requested 42$/hr as that was what they paid their employees from the US.
  • atraac 4y ago
    I'm sorry for maybe being too frank but 35 eur/h is way too little. It's a bit below full time employment rates level even for Poland. You can get 40eur/h almost instantly anywhere. Some agencies are willing to pay up to 90eur/h for frontend devs as far as I've seen. It's much harder for backend development but 40-50eur is still easily obtainable. I'm looking right now and most offers come down to 40 eur/h for mid/senior .NET development.
    • tpxl 4y ago
      Full time devs in Poland get 6k€ pre-tax? The best offer I got last time I searched was 4k€ pre-tax for full time where I live (~50k/year).
      • atraac 4y ago
        If you look through f.e. justjoin.it, most Senior offers are between 20-30k pln(4,2-6,3k eur), most western companies will offer you 40 eur/h from my recent experience which would amount to 6,4k eur/mo. I'm personally looking for something between 45-50 eur/h and I'm not having much luck, but I already had few 40 eur/h offers within last few days(for .NET). Also Dropbox opened in Poland and offers something around 30-35k pln/mo, at least that's what a friend got there.
  • jononor 4y ago
    You should rise your rate to 2-4x that, and only bother talking to companies that accept such rates (possibly in other regions). If they haggle and you like them / the project, give a symbolic discount like 20%.
• tdehnel 4y ago
  It used to be $225/hr. But I don’t have an hourly rate anymore and I basically never will. You need to understand that as a contractor clients value more than just your time and the work you do. They value flexibility in staffing, getting an outsider’s opinion, their own time, working with a true expert, and making progress on projects which they can show off to their boss. That’s why for all my work I scope project fees plus monthly retainers. The retainers are use it or lose it. Then I focus on delivering the best possible experience for my clients. By switching to this model I do about 3x my previous earnings. And my clients are happy (I haven’t lost one yet). It doesn’t make sense to become a contractor just to remain a wage slave. (Before all the “I can’t do this because my situation is different”: You are full of it. Anyone can do this.)
  • jcims 4y ago
    I've been out of the race for about 7 years but had this exact same realization and agree with your position 100%.
  • nonameking2026 4y ago
    Are you working in a specialized field or going on reputation mostly ?
    • tdehnel 4y ago
      There are probably a half million people who do what I do. I go on reputation and sales ability. Anyone can learn to improve both for themselves.
      • b20000 4y ago
        so how do people find you and how do you convert them? do you do cold calling?
  • arbitrage 4y ago
    Hi, some people need health insurance for themselves and their family, a retirement plan, and predictable financial stability in their lives. > You are full of it. Anyone can do this. Your part to whole fallacy aside, in the real world, there are different constraints on people and family units other than trying to make the most amount of money all the time.
• brk 4y ago
  My wife handles NetSuite and some Salesfoce outside developers as part of her role. She says they pay agencies $180-$230/hr for devs, depending on the person, seniority level, task, etc. I know that many times the developers are in India, or other countries with lower wages, and often they need a lot of oversight. IMO your rates are too low, assuming that you are talking about US-based customers and you are US-based as well. $150-$175/hr would probably be palatable to your customers.
  • TbobbyZ 4y ago
    I can’t seem to break $130 hr. I have about 7 years of experience.
• atemerev 4y ago
  Depends on the customer. The largest rate I used to take was $500/hour (for a 10 hours project, so it haven’t made me a millionaire). The smallest is of course free, but the actual commercial smallest was probably $80/hour (for a long-term project). (I live in Switzerland, which is quite expensive). It goes without saying that there are times when I don’t have any projects in the pipeline, so I have to spend some time on finding another set of clients. The longest such interval has been about 6 months.
  • mod 4y ago
    What kinds of things are you doing to find clients?
    • atemerev 4y ago
      Asking my existing clients for references, profile communities (the industry I work in is small enough), LinkedIn.
  • esel2k 4y ago
    Same country and I received quiet offers with a wide range: From senior engineer at a rate of 65USD/h up to some product/project engineer work for the same company (other bodyleasing company though) 120USD/h. I am bit confused on how to establish a solid rate as it seems I had zero negotiation options. Thanks for your advice.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• tptacek 4y ago
  OT, but important: don't bill hourly. Do a day rate. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103417 You can benchmark day rates by your hourly rate, if that's easier for you to think or talk about. Your benchmark hourly rate should probably start at 150%-200% of your salary (backed out to hourly). It can reasonably go much higher. It can't reasonably go much lower.
  • biztos 4y ago
    > your salary (backed out to hourly) Is there a standard rule of thumb for "hours worked in a year" at companies? Off the top of my head I come up with ~ 1700 for my last salaried job: 365 - 104 (weekends) - 32 (vacation) - 10 (holidays) - 5 (sick) = 214 days or 1712 hours @8/d. Also I think for "your salary" you should use your total compensation but maybe that's what you meant.
    • howeyc 4y ago
      the "quick maths" way is 2000 hours/year 50 weeks, 40 hours per week. Dividing/Multiplying by 2 in your head for quick estimates easy. For more accuracy, do what you did.
    • withzombies 4y ago
      The standard rule is 2080 hours, it's 52 weeks * 40 hours. You might say, but what about vacation, and that's fair when talking about an employee-employer relationship but you're contracting. So your rate calculations have to include all your costs, including your vacation/sick days/etc.
      • biztos 4y ago
        > So your rate calculations have to include all your costs, including your vacation/sick days/etc. If I understand you (and the other replies) correctly, the advice is to ignore the benefit value of PTO when estimating the hourly equivalent rate, then add it back in after the fact based on... something? Is there a better formula than $TOTAL_COMP / $TIME_WORKED?
• JohnFen 4y ago
  It depends on the job. I prefer charging a flat fee over an hourly rate when possible, but in either case, the rate varies depending on the nature of the job and the company.
• martin_a 4y ago
  I'm fixing some WordPress websites on the side for 60 Euro/hour for clients from earlier days. For new clients I'd look into 90 Euro/hour. Your work is much more complex though, your rate should therefore be higher, I think, especially if this is your main job. Would it make sense for you to switch to another billing model, like "per module" or does billing per hour work fine for you? edit: Based in Germany
  • k__ 4y ago
    In my experience German companies pay half or third of what US companies pay.
    • martin_a 4y ago
      Yes, because lots of expenses are already paid by the employer, so no need to ramp up the loan.
      • k__ 4y ago
        Ah, yes, all the expenses my clients pay for me.
        • martin_a 4y ago
          Ah, that way around. Sorry, didn't get that you looked at it from that angle.
• Sytten 4y ago
  I charge around 75$/h for backend and devops work. I started at 42$/h two years ago. Increasing the rate at every contract. I usually only bill coding hours which is around 5h/day for me, but I realized that it is not a good strategy.
  • leshenka 4y ago
    As someone that works 9-5 and looking into freelance, why > that it is not a good strategy ?
    • gk1 4y ago
      Because as an independent contractor/consultant you're spending a lot of time meeting with the client, making or reviewing plans or reviewing planning docs, researching things, just thinking about the problem, and so on... These things become a sizable portion of the time you spend on a client, and more importantly they increase the value you provide to the client. Why would you not charge for it?
    • Communitivity 4y ago
      Because coding is only a small part of your job as a consultant. Your job is to alleviate your client's pain points, pain points they are incapable or unwilling to alleviate themselves. There will be coding. There will also be design, education, testing, documentation, a certain amount of hand holding possibly, presentation, and possibly travel. By just billing coding you are vastly undercharging. Consider this... Let's say you make $100k as salary, with decent benefits, etc. I calculated it once and I would need $60k to replace my benefits (I make more than $100k). To make consulting worthwhile financially you would then need $100k+60k+??k. For salaries under $120k doubling to get your target income as a consultant seems to be a good rule of thumb. For salaries over $120k, maybe somewhere between 150-200%. As other have said, never charge by the hour. Charge costs + weekly retainer, or monthly retainer. When I was a freelance consultant I did costs + hourly, and it was a mistake, but I was young.
    • mod 4y ago
      Because you have work to do that isn't coding.
• DaviNunes 4y ago
  $50 USD for full-stack development. mid-senior level.
  • adrr 4y ago
    Are you US based? Companies are hiring mid to senior devs at $150k/yr. That is way under market rate.
• hardwaresofton 4y ago
  Hey fellow consultants in here, can someone just please make a glassdoor for us? I’m tired of holding this idea in my head would love to see it out there so we can just get to the good part (knowing what to charge). If you need more explanation: https://unvalidated-ideas.vadosware.io/editions/012 https://unvalidated-ideas.vadosware.io/editions/012
  • jt2190 4y ago
    > … [A] market pay rate/invoicing data product…sell it to the people who need it most -- freelancers and consultants. > Selling to companies on the other side of this equation is also obvious… So basically an invoicing product that provides hourly rate suggestions based on collected data? Surely this must exist already.
    • hardwaresofton 4y ago
      You’d think so. I don’t Think you should bother building invoicing though. That’s not the point, price discovery is the only point. You could just sell the dataset directly IMO, quarterly data is what people care about, and there’s a reason to buy every single year
      • iancmceachern 4y ago
        You should make a plug in for Freshbooks
        • hardwaresofton 4y ago
          Damn guess I should do it… Won’t anyone rid me of this priest^H idea?
• edent 4y ago
  I have three rates. You are a charity, or other worthy cause, or someone I really want to work with - 50% - 100% discount. You are a normal client - 100%. You are either an arsehole or have asked for something very last minute - 150%-200% depending on the mood I'm in. The last one, colloquially known as the fuck-off rate, is probably the best bit of contracting advice I ever got from a colleague. He hated the gig we were doing, utterly despised the boss, and walked away smiling every day because he was one week closer to retirement. It's only really sustainable for your mental health in short runs. Oh, and never charge per hour. It isn't like you can do an hour for client X and then the next one on client Y. You're not a bloody lawyer - you're a professional! I sometimes split jobs into half-days, if the client prefers it. Although that's more like 66% for each half. Oh, and finally, you don't customise Salesforce. You help your clients solve a problem. That may usually involve Salesforce, but most of your potential clients probably don't know what SF can do. So what you're actually selling is a way to optimise the client funnel (or whatever).
  • steve_slammin 4y ago
    He helps his clients solve problems...unless they aren't using Salesforce. Then they're on their own.
  • datavirtue 4y ago
    Good point. Developers need to quit putting tools (languages, frameworks, cloud vendors) and tech buzzwords next to their name. It is embarrassing as hell.
    • edent 4y ago
      I wouldn't say embarrassing - I'd just say limiting. A plumber doesn't list the names of the industrial chemicals and tools. They say "we unblock your toilet quickly and safely" - because that's what the customer is buying.
      • dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
        Well at least there aren't 20 types of toilets where each one takes 3 years to learn how to unlock...
• nojito 4y ago
  DS/ML Consulting $300 an hour Don't have much free time these days unfortunately to grow it out further.
  • ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
    Need some help? I'm employed as an engineer at a top knotch tech company, looking for side work
  • TbobbyZ 4y ago
    How long have you been in the field? Data Science and Machine Learning?
    • nojito 4y ago
      10+ years but I started consulting while as an undergrad.
      • TbobbyZ 4y ago
        Can you share recommended resources to get started? Is it possible to get into without a degree?
  • ludoro14152 4y ago
    I am an ML engineer at Google looking for some moonlighting work. Could you share how you find clients? How did you start?
    • nojito 4y ago
      Since you’re already at Google. Why not reach out to former colleagues and see if they can create consulting gigs for you?
      • ludoro14152 4y ago
        I do not have former colleagues as I have been here for < 1 year, but that’s a good suggestion, thanks!
• datavirtue 4y ago
  $150/hr USD OH/NC/TN Small S-Corp of consultants/contractors. Software development team augmentation mostly but we often have multiple people in each client--often working together. We actually do consulting work in addition to contracting. A few people have higher rates...which is client dependent. The big clients have asked for every person we can throw at them but we purposefully do not go all-in like that. At my gig, a startup in Dayton, I work with two other developers from my company and we are responsible for a new product--soup to nuts. We handle project management, requirements definition (experts in finance/banking/payments), DevOps, and coding and meeting with a wide array of business ops people and management. Honestly, we are working for a low rate in this instance but there are zero micromanagement or bullshit or dumbasses to deal with. We have outrun the business and spend our time on nice to have stuff while they catch up. We choose the tech stack.
• xwowsersx 4y ago
  What's up with the Poll? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32606904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32606904 Won't load for me.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • sixhobbits 4y ago
    it loads for me. Can you view other polls in HN? (search "Poll:" in bar at the bottom)
    • xwowsersx 4y ago
      Yes, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12683334 for example loads fine, but the contractor one just loads nothing for me. Checked network tab and don't see any errors or anything. Hmm, inspector tab shows the full DOM, but none of it is visible in the browser window... https://ibb.co/3vDts8r https://ibb.co/3vDts8r EDIT: Ok, must be an extension. Works fine in private window. EDIT 2: the culprit appears to be the Hacker News Enhancement Suite extension on FF. Once disabled, the poll works. https://github.com/etcet/HNES https://github.com/etcet/HNES
• desindol 4y ago
  120-160 depends on the client and project
• vehemenz 4y ago
  It varies but $100 is the bare minimum for any type of work that isn't volunteer.
• Escapado 4y ago
  I am located in germany, work as a fullstack dev with frontend focus (react/vue). I have about 6 years of total dev experience[1]. For full time projects I charge 90-100€/h (+19% VAT) and I exclusively take on remote projects. When I started out at as a freelancer at the beginning of 2020 my rate was 80€/h. If I was approached with short term projects(as in less than 160h of work) I would charge significantly more but that hasn't happened yet, usually I get booked 3-12 months. As it turns out my yearly net income is significantly higher than that of my employed peers in every single project I have worked so far since the market is so starved for devs and I never had any downtime between projects. Sometimes I wonder if I could ask for even more given the market situation but I also feel somewhat overpaid tbh. [1] I learned programming on the side during my bachelor's in physics. During my master's I started working for a consultancy at night doing webdev while researching quantum computing and machine learning for my master's thesis. After I got a job as a full stack engineer after I finished my degree but I quit that job after about a year to go freelance.
  • silent_cal 4y ago
    Where did you go to find your first freelancing gigs?
    • Escapado 4y ago
      I sent my CV to recruiting companies such as Hays, Computerfutures, Gulp and a couple more as well as having a linkedin and xing profile. On my first job I actually worked with one of them as an intermediary for a larger company and when I quit I asked them if they could actually arrange it so I could continue to work there but as a freelancer. They agreed, my original contract did not forbid it and as I was the only dev at the company no harm was done.
  • dijit 4y ago
    it's probably true that you're earning more; but you should know that the amount seen on the balance sheet isn't the whole truth. In fact, I'm quite sure you know, but for those reading: 80-100eur/h on a contract is roughly equivalent to 50-60eur/h salaried; due to social contributions, paid vacation (1.12th of your salary), pension contributions and other benefits relating to insurance in the even the business goes bankrupt. -- that doesn't include any other benefits you might get as a FTE. It's very hard to compare, and it's the same awkward comparison you have to make when talking to US folks, since US folks have as much job security as contractors do in Europe and get paid in a relatively similar way with similar benefits in some cases.
• anovikov 4y ago
  I am in Cyprus, run a small agency, and charge $130 an hour but willing to go down to $100 for long term contracts. Also have one legacy $90 an hour project for which rate increase is simply not possible, but i won't take any new client at that rate. We specialise in video.
• maxsavin 4y ago
  I usually charge per day or per week. If it's a few hours, I just tell them it's not worth my time. The locality of the customer matters a lot. Usually, I will factor what it would cost for them to hire a full-time engineer (not just salary, but also overhead). A $120k salary will cost the company $200k, or $90 per hour. Then I'll add a % on top since I'm not getting days off, paid vacation, long-term security, etc. That kind of reasoning helps with stingy customers. Otherwise, I just give a flat rate to solve their problem. For customers that need me long term, I also ask for a monthly retainer to keep availability for them, for meetings, emergency bug fixes, etc. Otherwise, you're giving them the perks of an employee without them properly compensating you.
• mcv 4y ago
  When I started out as a freelancer n10 years ago, I was aiming for € 70 per hour. My first gig was € 55, the next € 60, then € 67.5. And then suddenly it jumped to € 75, € 82, € 85, and I'm currently making € 95 per hour. I just keep slowly increasing the rate until they stop hiring me. Note, this is mostly for long in-house projects, where I'm part of a team working on a single project. I'm working roughly 32 hours a week.
• gortok 4y ago
  I don't charge by the hour. I charge fixed prices only for project work. For advisory retainers, I charge a flat rate per month. All upfront (or 50% up front and 50% in X number of days). Billing by the hour misaligns incentives. (Obligatory link to Hourly Billing is Nuts: https://jonathanstark.com/hbin https://jonathanstark.com/hbin )
• s1mon 4y ago
  While this may be somewhat tongue in cheek, I often think of this post from Anil Dash: "I talk to a lot of consultants, freelancers, and small businesses who do web work, and I used to be a freelancer myself, so sometimes I get asked for advice on how to price one’s goods and services. I think I came up with my best suggestion today, and it involves only two simple steps: Slap the client in face. Tell the client your hourly rate. If the person looked more shocked, horrified, offended, hurt, saddened, or wounded by the slap in the face, then you are still pricing yourself too low. Your mileage may vary, this is not to be construed as legal advice, eye-poking may be substituted for slapping in some states." https://anildash.com/2005/05/12/pay_by_the_hour/ https://anildash.com/2005/05/12/pay_by_the_hour/
• gadders 4y ago
  This reminds me of the old joke about a consultant who retired at 65, but his billable hours made him 102.
• no-dr-onboard 4y ago
  Appsec/Network Pentesting, (freelance insured, bonded, "botique") $275/hr, hours stated upfront per app/project. Change order issued if we have to go over. Nondelivery of access prior to testing period eats away at your time. We do a kickoff call 3d prior to make sure that this doesn't happen. I'll work with them to deliver results in a format that you can import. I'll do an in-person kickoff & readout, otherwise fully remote. I'll deliver abstracts for you to give to your clients. I've been doing this for 7y now and turn down a lot of work based on scheduling.
  • TbobbyZ 4y ago
    How do I get started in your field of work?
• woopwoop24 4y ago
  Germany, freelancer in "devops" we call it these days (infra automation, container, k8s etc..) with about 7 years of experience in linux and 10 years overall in consulting. i charge around 100€-125€/h (+19% VAT) depending if onsite or remote. i have seen people go for 150€ but these are the ones kicked out first if there is an issue or company needs to save money.
  • throwaway642012 4y ago
    If I may ask, how is the German freelance market in the current environment? I'm on fence about going freelance (Mobile/backend+DevOps) and would love to know your thoughts.
    • woopwoop24 4y ago
      around one offer every two days is the usual, some of them are absolute crap, some so so but some are not bad. i am on freelancermap, linkedin and xing. have to say since covid worked exclusively in banking and insurance, so not so sure what happended outside of my bubble. what is keeping you from doing it?
      • throwaway642012 4y ago
        > what is keeping you from doing it? Mostly intertia and post-covid fatigue. Thank you for kicking me in the butt and providing the valuable information :-)
        • woopwoop24 4y ago
          you can PM me if you have more questions or want to talk in detail :) happy to help
          • throwaway642012 4y ago
            I would love to! I see no email in your profile, can you please share it?
• justinlloyd 4y ago
  A few years back, 2013 through early 2016, my day rate was $1,600 USD, I frequently worked on-site so my travel rate was $75/hr to discourage people from calling me in unncessarily. If I was doing that work today, I'd be probably upping those day rates to $2,000 or $2,400 with zero travel. Right now I charge $1,000/day. I do precisely 8 hours. Zero travel. No out of normal work hours. No weekends. No unreasonable demands. No arseholes. No toxicity. No guilting me into delivering something. No awkward conversations about "well why isn't X done yet?" No high stress. No "we must deliver this by Tuesday at all costs." No "we need you to go hard on this problem." No "we need you to come in to the office for this." I tend to work with young start-ups who have interesting problems to solve. The downside is that this frequently involves working with first-time founders who lack boundaries or start-ups who think because they paid "for a day" that a "day" involves 20 hours of work. I'm getting better about stating that "I start at 9AM local time and stop at 6PM local time." I could get more if I worked for BigCorp, or even a regular job quite possibly, but this way I get to pick and choose what I work on, and when I want to work. If I want to shift my days or hours around to take an afternoon off, I do, and I don't have to explain myself to anyone.
• threefiftyone1 4y ago
  I've realized that charging $13/hour was a mistake... or I should start serving international clients
• hkhanna 4y ago
  I'm both a lawyer and a software engineer, so I have two different rates depending on the work I'm doing. My legal fee is $495 an hour, and my engineering fee is $395 an hour. I expect to increase both of those next year. I offer a blended rate for companies that are in need of both legal and software services; these are usually early stage startups, non-profits, and small family offices.
  • kwere 4y ago
    >small family offices interesting, hat kind of work they request? some investment , data feed, etc.. automation?
    • nivertech 4y ago
      probably legal and/or technical due diligence -- https://sv4ie.com/tech-due-diligence-4e6d868f4754 https://sv4ie.com/tech-due-diligence-4e6d868f4754 https://sv4ie.com/what-exactly-is-technical-due-diligence-for-a-startup-a6852cf4895f https://sv4ie.com/what-exactly-is-technical-due-diligence-fo... https://www.embroker.com/blog/due-diligence/ https://www.embroker.com/blog/due-diligence/
• eaglehead 4y ago
  Where are you finding these contracts from? I am a very experienced Full-stack developer and would love to switch to contract work.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• cosmodisk 4y ago
  My rates are within £50-95/h, depending on the complexity and the type of the job. Salesforce administration & development.
• optemization 4y ago
  I’m a Notion Consultant. I usually avoid hourly work but when I do some coaching/training sometimes. In that case, I charge between $300 and $1000 session (60 to 90 mins).
  • vacekj 4y ago
    No offense, but may I ask what exactly do you consult on in Notion?