| Author | Message | ||
     Ninanic |
After 17 years continuous employment as a programmer in the corporate world, I've been suddenly and unexpectedly laid off. When my situation became known an acquaintance offered me the opportunity to do some free-lance work on the website of a national non-profit organization, and asked me what would be my hourly rate. Having zero experience doing free-lance programming, I have no idea how to respond. The work would involve hand-coding in HTML, using editors such as Dreamweaver, and work with SQL databases. Can anybody give me any guidance as to what is the going rate for such work? Thanks. | ||
| Dave |
First, get as much information from the client as possible: scope of work, value to the client, and what they have budgeted. Let them know that the more you know upfront, the more competitive you can make your proposal/estimate. Second, when determining your rate, keep in mind that you're going to be paying a bigger chunk than usual to Uncle Sam (double the Social Security tax). It's not easy to calculate what rate you should use because Web development has "artistic" pricing components, which are based on perceived value rather than simply time spent on a task. Also, SQL work is typically paid on a higher scale than HTML work. Don't make two pay scales for yourself. Price everything at whatever rate you finally determine. Third, put everything in writing and get it signed off on. It's good business. And feel free to present them with a total project estimate range rather than an hourly rate (though you should have calculated that for your own record). Sometimes open-ended jobs with hourly rates scare clients. | ||
| Ninanic |
Thanks Dave! | ||
| Enigmabomb |
You were a programmer? COOL! How did you get into that field? Dave is right, do a guesstimate of how long it will take you to do the project, add 5 hours for good keeping, then give them a flat fee. Try to get some up front too... I have heard some interesting stories of people bailing on developers. -enigmabomb- | ||
| Err229 |
Remember if you give them a flat rate to include a clause in your work order or contract that states any changes to the scope of the project will require a written work order and will be billed separately. | ||
| Private Citizen Citizen Username: Privatecitizen Post Number: 42 Registered: 8-2002  |
To see what the going rate is for most programming type jobs, check out: http://www.e-lance.com/ I've used someone on e-lance for several of our graphical work jobs and it's been a postive experience. | ||
| greeneyes Citizen Username: Greeneyes Post Number: 434 Registered: 8-2001 |
Think they're still interested after more than 2 years Citizen?  | ||
| Private Citizen Citizen Username: Privatecitizen Post Number: 48 Registered: 8-2002 |
Who knows? Don't care though as the question was asked and an answer was given. Additionally, since the job market began to suffer substantially just after 9/11 I wouldn't be surprised if some people are still unemployed even after two years. |
