Hourl ycost for programming?

How mush is your hourly cost for programming? Is $12/hour good?

 

It depends on:

-the language(s) used to code
-demand of the product
-difficulty level
-overtime hours
-your business costs
-code quality, of course buggy code is worth less than flawless code.
-cost of living in the moment

There are so many factors that determine this. Consumers mostly do not realize that with rising gas costs and such, your rates have to rise too. A rise in food, internet, fuel, server, and other costs will always effect your bottom line. One cannot just full a figure out of their butt, the amount you make needs to be calculated carefully based on your cost of living and cost of business. Consumers will complain, but this is how business works. Period.

 

For example php and the customer is asking for a custom dating site script...?

 

Freelance programmers can hardly charge an hourly rate check freelance website like http://getafreelnacer.com/ , you get outbidded by ten freelance programmers if you think of charging $12/hour rate for freelance jobs posted in freelancer sites.

 

$12/hour I think is too expensive for a freelance... I think freelance programmers are paid in per-project basis and not per hour?

 

Programmers get paid whatever the client is willing to pay provided they are prepared to work for that.

As to whether its per hour or per project is up to the client (again assuming the programmer will accept that).

Yes you will find that most freelance sites charge by the project, but not all free lance projects are.

Personally on the rare times I freelance I dont charge anything less than $80-100 per hour.

Jen

 

What planet you live on? $12 in the USA is just above proverty level. I can make that working at Walmart driving a fork lift. You are paying for expertise, not labor. Any schuck can code. It takes an intelligent and educated person to write GREAT code. Why you think lawyers and doctors make so much? Because you get paid for how much you know.

But yes, hourly in this biz is silly. I don't know anyone that honestly works hourly. We just average it out to hourly on paper so the customer can understand the fees. It is easier to justify $25 and hour over $3000 for the whole job. Because the customer want to see it in the same terms of how HE or SHE gets paid.

As far as freelance bidding sites, they are flawed. You get about 1/4th of the info you need on the job and then when the rest of the details come out, the bid was already made and you are doing more work than what you bid for. Most customers are too lazy to print out a specs sheet and upload it to getacoder. They just say, "hey I need this" and rarely go into the type of detail needed to form an accurate quote.

A problem that USA companies are discovering is that while they are saving money by outsourcing tech jobs to India, that the general quality is lacking. Why? Because even in India you get what you pay for, just like in the USA. If you pay $1500 a month for a coder, you tend to get a kid straight out of college, where-as if you pay more, you get a more experienced developer.

Lets look at cost of living. Better yet, poverty levels in the USA:



*SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 15, January 23, 2008, pp. 3971–3972.

So at $12 per hour, I, with my woman and 3 kids, would be at poverty level in Tennessee. For that I ought as well just work at a gas station, at least there I would get medical benefits. You see, freelancers have to get their own health insurance, dental insurance, etc. Freelancers need more to survive. If a freelancer isn't taking this into account then he/she either has free government assistance or a second job that offers benefits. You also have to take into account taxes. How reliable is a freelancers that is in jail for not reporting revenue and not paying taxes?

So you ask, why not hire a single guy with no experience to save money? Well, who do you think will be around the longest, the kid with nothing to lose or the man that depends on this work to keep his family alive?

 

It depends on how many people are on the development team. 1 person at $12/hour might be the same as 2 people at $24/hour which might be the same as 3 people at $36/hour etc ... . This is because more people get the job done faster (so paying more dollars per hour might cut down the number of hours). Best way to gauge price would be to ask for the size of the development team, and divide the hourly pay by the number of developers (to get a rough idea of cost per developer).

 

Depends on how good you are. I will charge anywhere from $30 to $100 per hour depending on how long the project will take me. If you're someone who takes five times longer than other people to complete a project, people will typically want to pay you 1/5th of what they would pay someone who can do it quickly.

 

Well looking at the above stat... I can really figure it out... I am in Philippines and cost of living is lower than India actually but I think quality of living here is better than most of other countries... $12/hour is too big is you are living in Philippines...

 

Now you understand. A fee for all developers isn't fair. There are too many variables to be considered. You might pay $250 a month for rent, hile I pay $1000 a month for rent. That doesn't even cover utilities.

 

I'm sorry but i beg to differ, the cost of living in the philippines is not lower than india, heck, not even in far away isolated provinces, i agree that the quality of living is better than most (i love my country minus the tax and politicians)

$12 is not too big, there's no amount that is too big(LoL im greedy), it probably is for non-experienced script kiddies but for a professional, you cant say the same.

my 2 cents

 

LOL, money is goooood.

 

LOL $12 per hour is pretty good for an ordinary man here...

Working $12/hour for 8/day will give you total daily amount of 4,372Php... The minimum wage is around 350php/day...

 

Freelancer doesn't work 8hours/day.
Freelancer often works as emergency service.
It shouldn't be even compared.
Personally I take $25/hour (minimum $25.00) and believe me - people prefer to pay it to me than $10 or $12 to others.
Sometimes such low rate sounds too good to be true

And first always is not rate but quality and reputation!

 

-if you're a freelancer you dont work 8hrs a day, if you do, then you're not

- you are a programmer therefore you're not an ordinary man, they pay for your knowledge

-everyone can write code, but not anyone can do it efficiently

-it may sound much for someone who doesnt have any responsibilities, but $12 per hour for someone who have people to feed,bills to pay, mortgage/loans to take care of, whew!

-pinoy po ako (i also come from the philippines)

 

Then you must be renting a condo in makati if you are still here... Even earning 2,000 per day (60k/mo) is good enough to feed your family and pay tuition...

 

i really dont think you're getting the idea, freelancing doesnt come with a steady stream of income, you can earn some today but who knows if there will be work for tomorrow, dont go with the stereotype of working 8hours a day 5-6 days a week, that is not freelancing, thats more than like a dayjob, anyways this is getting tiresome already, everyone is entitled to their opinions, just dont generalize, because each and everyone of us have different situations...

 

Wow there, $12/h? don't lower yourself just to get clients geez. Unless the project is a long term one else it's not worth it, you will be losing tons of money. Heck, I charge $25/h and have never been hired hourly (more because I prefer to work on fixed price at the moment)

Now, consider that price + charge for 1) tolerating the client *I know some of you guys just WANTS to shoot your client sometimes* 2) Explanations (If you have come across this type of issue that the client asks you like 1,000 questions and waste 2 hours then asks you why you haven't finished, apply fee *yes it has happened to me*)

Note, most of the people that hires you sometimes are willing to pay more if you explain things in a detailed way. I've gotten a few bonus from doing this, never comes bad *and no, I didn't do it purposely, I don't have time to fool around*. Oh yea, ignore those who put in description "I will not pay more than the price bid"

Anyway, remember to check out other freelancer sites, never stick to one, i have like 3-4 on my rss reader scanning every five minutes

And lastly, it doesn't matter where you live, if you have good knowledge in your area of expertise just charge like anybody else, you didn't spend time learning just to earn a misery right?

 

I agree with ITNashville ... clients are paying for a professional service, which includes expertise and knowledge, and in each market the fair price varies. In NJ, fulltime programmers/system architects/DBAs can earn up to $150/hour, while HTML coders might go as low as $40/hour.

While some of this cost can be reduced for the client by outsourcing to India or China, it very rarely ever works out. The cost of adding project management and development iterations due to language barriers increases twofold when you outsource to a developing nation, which are hidden costs which aren't first apparent. So in the end getting a programmer for $12/hour can mean $50 to $60/hour in final costs.

Many jobs my company undertake include saving a failed project which was originally outsourced. I can't tell you how many times a client has come to me and sad "I wish I just paid the money to have it done right the first time!"

So can you code a quick freelance job online for $12? Sure, if you think that's all your worth, or if that's a good price in your area, or if you just need the money. It all depends on where you're form, you level of knowledge or ability, and whatever the client wants to pay.