So up until now I've been working for one company on salary. But lately I've been exploring the idea of doing some freelance web programming on the side. My question is, what should an experienced web (ASP/PHP/.Net/DHTML) programmer charge per hour? Any ideas?
freelance web development has got to be pretty competitive.. unless you have a great resume with solid experience (Yahoo! or Google web designer, etc.) or a lot of specialized skills that are in demand or tailored to a vertical market I would say $80 tops, but you have to be prepared to answer why the other guys only charge $25 or $40 / hour. I think the best strategy is to really go after a vertical industry niche and build off your strengths such as health portal expert or insurance or bank applications developer. Eric
umm, I think $30/hr is ridiculous I met a .Net development manager that contracts his guys out at over $200/hr. Mind you, that's for enterprise level development I know that the most basic SAS programmer starts at $55/hr I'm planning on charging between 60-100/hr, depending on the scope of the project
our company develops at $125.00 an hour - but I would never charge that for a personal client. I usually take my hourly rate at my current position, and charge a little less than double. So If i made 25 an hour - I'd charge 40 an hour to cover taxes and such for Freelance.
Wow thats a lot of money I only do freelance jobs and some personal projects with other people. I'm experienced in java/cpp, E-business, cordys/sap/oracle but not good with webdevelopment. When i;m graduating in computer science i might get something like 50/70 dollars a month (i hope)
Thems the breaks . $30/hour is a fact of life. Keep in mind a few things that differentiate you from someone like me who can charge $200 an hour (not that I do developement work myself, but I do consult occassionally at $200/hour). - you're not a corporation. You're an individual doing general programming. That's $30 an hour. The $200 an hour happens when someone is hiring the name of a company, not someone working at home in the evenings. Not to denigrate what you do - but that's why the price is low. - your clients won't be large corporations, they'll be small biz's and individuals who are very price sensitive. A 500 person company spending 30K on their website who'll drop $200 an hour aren't hiring you P/T. They're hiring the corporations. Your client base will be extremely price sensitive. - your clients will be looking on the internet and seeing that for $800 they can get a full time programmer for a month; someone as experienced as you and as good as you, just living in a country with a much smaller standard of living. - even without the offshore price pressures, asp and net programmers are a dime a dozen - and experienced talented asp/net programmers are still less than a quarter a dozen. Why would a small shop pay you $200 an hour when they can get the same work done for $20-$30 an hour - and maybe get 'sufficiently as well' work done for $6 an hour? Well, they won't. Which means if you want any work you've got to charge in that range; because as $200 an hour nobody will hire you. (Note that I'm not intending to denigrate your skills or value here. Merely showing you why people won't pay what your asking - not a chance.). The fact is, the market is glutted at $30 an hour. When I started hiring contract programmers back in the 90's, I readily paid $100+ an hour to good developers, even for projects they were doing for 40 hours a week. Now I'd doubt I would pay more than $50 - and likely only then for some very specific reason. Generally speaking I'm looking at that high only if I know I can completely unload a project and the developer is intimately familiar with my stuff and I will spend no time on bugs and they understand the design as well as I do - in other words I'm not paying for any learning curve or second chances. $50 is if I already know you're going to do this twice as fast as the fellow I can get for $30 an hour. Otherwise it's cheaper for me to hire the $30 an hour, even if it takes them almost twice as long. And of course it won't take them twice as long because experienced developers are readily available at that price range. It's great these days to be hiring developers. You can get great work done dirt cheap. It sucks to be a freelance developer in a developed country though - pay is pretty low. When I started, development/programming costs were a serious factor in my devling into projects. These days it's not something I really concern myself with. I can get an awful lot of development done for $1000. In short, large corporation on contract job for other corporation; $50-$200 an hour. Single person working P/T on piecemeal work for SOHO or small shop; $30 an hour (and has to put up with stupid client's and thier headaches, and won't pay and specs change at end of project and so on ).
Frankcow - start at $100 an hour and negotiate from there. Much easier to CUT the price than to RAISE it.
it depends on the programmer's capability, dont expect $200 while working on your first project.. I used to work for a recruitment agency for 25 BP / hr, but what I have found is to go on project basis not hourly, now I give quote on full project rather than working per hour, well thats just my personal opinion, but I thikn I am more satisfied with this strategy.. cheers