Thread

I’m sure this was discussed to death on many forums but I’m curious on what this community has to say about the topic. I recently launched a product and I receive a lot of requests to modify it based on every client’s needs and dreams. Everyone’s bugging me to set an hourly rate for freelancing and start doing’em all.

I’m just curious about everyone’s hourly rate for freelancing. If I’m about to hire you, what would be your charge.

Thank you.

On average, I charge around $55-60/hr. But this is from the perspective of many years experience, a history of deploying self-built applications, and a knack for business understanding/knowledge.

I would imagine a beginner to intermediate developer would charge at least $30hr.

You might take a look at my post I wrote on this subject.  Also, do not discuss your rates here.  There are laws which which restrict this sort of thing and it is just best not to “go there.”  Take a look at this thread too.

This question is not answerable anyway.  Picking your rates based on what someone else tells you is not good business practice.  You have to make this decision for yourself.  You have different needs and experience than other people in this community.

You might take a look at the calculater from Freelanceswitch.

OK, so I won’t comment on the rates.

However, there seems to be a huge descepancies between rates that a prospective client will receive for a job that I want to touch on.

For example, I have quoted on a few jobs that seemed to be a combination of Google, facebook, Flicker, Youtube and Digg with what I thought was very reasonable rates, only to be told that someone has quoted for one third the price. So one developer quotes at (say) $100, and the other at (say) $5. What is the Client to do? What would you do?

As a freelance developer. I’m willing to revise my prices, but I’d rather be jobless that working for less that what I feel I’m worth. Before you start thinking that I’m be arraogant. consider this. Suppose I need a certain amount per month to pay my bills. I take a job just to secure the work, but where the price “won’t pay the rent”. What happens then? Do I take other (simulateous) jobs? Not without impacting my current job. Also, if oppurtunity arises for a better paying job that is above my required rate, here I am, stuck with a bum rate and not able to meet my accounts. I’d rather charge slightly extra to make up for the quite times, thumb down non-paying jobs and keep food on my table.

Just out of curiosity, what is this US restriction from discussing your own hourly rate? I’m not a resident of the country, but it seems quite odd that free speech is not entitled in matters of discussing your pay grades/rates, or the rates of others.

Can someone elaborate? Thanks.

Negligence, the law is against Price fixing.  Do a Google search to see dicussions about price fixing on forums. 

Crafter, I think people who charge higher rates just don’t even try to compete in markets where people will do everything for nothing.  Many of the clients who hire people for peanuts are probably not good clients anyways. 

Good clients are smarter than that.  They will know something is up if you are charging rates which are significantly lower than others.  They will know that perhaps you are unexperienced which could cause problems in other areas. 

This is how things work in the real world too (traditional brick and mortar jobs.)  Just because we have a minimum wage in the U.S. does not mean that employers will actually offer jobs for those rates.  They know that to attract good people they need to offer competitive wages.  Good clients are also willing to pay to get good results.  A business needs to put its cash to best use as possible but ultimately success comes with making money, not saving as much as possible. 

Also, just like any other business, you need to make sure you have a solid marketing plan and a healthy network.  Eventually you may not have to compete with anyone, clients will come to you instead.  When you have more clients knocking on your door than you can possibly service, start raising your rates!  😉