For the list you gave $60 an hour is a standard low end rate for competent English speaking contractors. Yes you can get some 3rd rate 3rd world code for less but it's a road you really don't want to go down blindly.
I wrote you a PM but when a coder is great in general they soon get so busy at prices like yours that they turn away work which in turn leads the price up. I know people that will charge me $100 for a 30 minute job and I"ll have to wait a few days for them to squeeze it in.
I jumped in here late so I'm sorry if I haven't caught up to speed with everything but found the thread interesting and wanted to post (gotta boost that post count you know ) I think this persons post sums it up best: It's turning into a commodity job, people lowball cause they can. Lowballing top notch developers is amusing, but then again who's top notch, as the recent top digg story pointed out, dig was created for $200. Plus there's enough free software out there that a lot of people can get piece together and make a halfway decent site from. Just my two cents(sense). Also, rant away, isn't that what general chat is for, as long as you don't mention names or elude to names, whatever. Everyones gotta vent sometime.
If you want set world prices you first have to get rid of global capitalism and head over to global socialism. Good coding, design or whatever is priceless, skills in itself are priceless. Brilliant people can never be overestimated. BUT, for $150 you can feed your family for one month in Gambia. In Norway you can feed your family for 2 days. And this is whats all about, to survive. Its not about art or intellect, its basic survival. Food, clothes you know. If there was no powerty in the world, nobody would work for $2 an hour. So if you complain about people accepting low balling, you better forget that and start to complain about powerty.
My personal view is, if you can pay your bills then why do you need more? Personal gain is learning new things, so having new gadgets.
Wow! This thread sure has grown since the last time I looked in on it!!! Some thoughts from having caught up on the reading...not in any particular order: 1) You may be the most incredible developer the world has ever seen...but that does not mean that that is what your customer needs. Maybe they only need a $5/hr rent-a-coder. It would be foolish for them to buy a Mercedes where a Yugo is completely acceptable. 2) Make certain you are CLEAR with your customer about your expectations and theirs! If they want "concept" work...then I personally would not write a line of code until we were clear on the financial agreement. Maybe I am willing to do some pro bono work on the concept...but you can be darned sure we will agree to a 'cap' as to how much unpaid time I will spend before they either have to decide to go forward (a.k.a. hire me) or else pay for any additional concept work (by the hour!). If you want them to pay for your concept work, make no bones about it right up front. The stress you save will be your own! 3) Before you start...unless it is woefully obvious (and I mean WOEFULLY), jot down in letter form your understanding of what you are being asked to do, what you expect to be paid, when, etc. Whether or not you treat this as a "legal" contract (see your laywer for details), what you are really after is a firm understanding between you and the customer of what you intend to do and what you expect to get paid. You are not doing it because you don't trust your client (because if you truly do not then why the heck are you doing business with them?). You are doing it to make certain you are both clear on your expectations. You will be amazed at what things can crop up that you never thought of once you reduce it to paper. The point being, most of this type of arrangement is about "expectation"...your customer's and yours. Do all you can to set a proper expectation from the get-go, and you will find your jobs going much smoother. 4) Scope creep is always a problem. You agree to do one thing, but the customer keeps asking for "a little change here, a little change there, oh and this won't take much would it?" I refer you to point #3. Get the expectations set BEFORE you begin...and this is something you should work out explicitly (how you will handle changes). As an idea starter, my employers make certain that the customer understands that if it is not in the original statement of work they had better expect to have to sink in more money. Of course, if it *is* small you can throw it in for the customer and make them happy...but beware of them thinking you should do this all the time. You have to approach this kind of thing VERY carefully. ************ That was just trying to "sum-up" my thoughts based upon a bazillion posts in the thread I had to catch up on. Do good work, set expectations early, and seek for the "win-win" situations (as someone posted earlier) and I think a lot of problems will simply cease to be problems.
screw the cheap charlies. I used to be a fulltime freelancer until I got fed up with these cheap charlies...which made me decide to just be my own client.
You dont know how many have tried to rip off my seo, after top 10 google ranking after top 10 google ranking. It makes me fumeee
I totally agree with this topic. People have a tendency to believe that everything is easy to do, and everything can be done fast and cheaply. Unfortunately that is not the thruth. Incredibly there are indeed people that want very complex jobs done at rates of $5 per hour. I can make more than that writing articles lol
@frankcow You are right in everything you said. My partner, for example, has 8 years of experience, something that is not very easy to find this day. I am his Marketing Menager (links in my siggy are from his freelance 'company', ZDN Computers). Couple days ago, on ZDN Facebook, i got PM from someone asking for hourly rate- for design only and for design+coding/programming. I says 'For only design:$20-$23 per hour, and $33 (£20) for design+programming' He/she said that that he have team of excellent programmers working for $8 (!!!) per hour and he '...plus I also know in your countries that 8.00us an hour is lots for you guys.' So, he knows about web designers/developers from UK that work for less then $8? Darn, I want that contact!
I think that the biggest reason that people low ball web developers is because the income made off of the sites that are getting developed is usually very low. But really, if you aren't making much off of a site put your money into content creation or seo and then buy a $20 wordpress theme.
$20/hr on rent-a-coder? My company hires developers on rent-a-coder for under $5/hr all the time, and rarely pays over $20/hr for full-time staff (we're not in a high income market). Sad really.
Happens everywhere, we have had plenty of threads like this in content, though not with the same script
I think it's actually 'what you sow', but you are right regardless Either find a specialized type of programming, like SAS, or learn to specialize a general programming language, like PHP