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Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

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Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#11

Post by roberthl »

josephjrobison wrote: post #6
ArtDev wrote: post #2

The secret sauce: large full-time contracts. Don't undersell your hourly rate. It has to be quite high to afford health insurance, save for retirement and save enough to take a little vacation time. Taxes are a massive problem if you self-employed. Auto-transfer your estimated taxes so you don't get in trouble at the end of the year.

Yes - retainers and contracts are gold! Less time on the treadmill of one-time projects. You may need one-time projects to start, but try to convert it to retainer soon after. For one-time projects have them always pay 50% down and milestones for the rest. Don't start until they pay. And if you can help it, don't bill hourly. Everyone who's been down that route advises against it. If clients don't fully understand wh…

I agree that retainers are a really useful tool for ensuring a consistent income and minimising time spent prospecting, but do also consider your motivations for freelancing. If you are looking to work on a variety of projects then a retainer may limit your ability to take on new opportunities when they come up.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#12

Post by Bashmaistora »

wsc981 wrote: post #5

First of all, I am from The Netherlands. My feedback is based on the Dutch market. - Average monthly income? Hard to say what the average is, since last year I took a break for 7 months and needed another 2 months to find a new opportunity. But when I am working the average gross income would be somewhere above 10.000 EUR ex. VAT. I'm working 40 hours a week. I usually try to work for big clients for at least a year…

Thanks for all the info.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#13

Post by Bashmaistora »

josephjrobison wrote: post #3

I only jumped ship when I had my full-time job and had 3 clients already on the side. I think the right time to do it is when you're too stressed out working full time and you already have clients. At least if you have 0 savings. If you have 6 months savings, then you're good to go and can take more of a leap. At the same time, I would have at least one on the side so you're sure you like it. Additionally, there's a…

Finding some initial clients before committing would be my next step.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#14

Post by tedmiston »

troels wrote: post #8

Freelance is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I've done short jobs in the past, but don't really like that. Now I'm doing longer contracts, with full time engagement and I like it a lot more. After doing a couple of startups in various positions (as employee and as founder), I decided to do some contract work for a while. I'm on my second contract now. The contracts I've been doing both started…

As someone in a similar position doing full-time independent contracting, I'm curious to hear how you've handled adjusting your rates to the market for existing contracts?

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#15

Post by troels »

tedmiston wrote: post #14
troels wrote: post #8

Freelance is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I've done short jobs in the past, but don't really like that. Now I'm doing longer contracts, with full time engagement and I like it a lot more. After doing a couple of startups in various positions (as employee and as founder), I decided to do some contract work for a while. I'm on my second contract now. The contracts I've been doing both started…

As someone in a similar position doing full-time independent contracting, I'm curious to hear how you've handled adjusting your rates to the market for existing contracts?

I haven't. I just raised the price when I took a new contract. It's the same game as when you're full time employed, except you get to play it 1-2 times a year.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#16

Post by meric »

rememberlenny wrote: post #4

Not a freelancer now, but did a lot of contracting. Key is to price using a WEEKLY RATE. Break your work into chunks of weeks. Do not do hourly work. If the client is looking for less than a week, then its possible to do a daily rate, at a higher average, but the moment you have to break up your tasks as hourly jobs or pay-per-task, you are creating the opportunity to absorb unexpected costs from the client.

Wouldn't an hourly rate be useful if we have a full time job and am only able to provide 5-15 hours, varying each week, to our clients?

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#17

Post by zerr »

wsc981 wrote: post #5

First of all, I am from The Netherlands. My feedback is based on the Dutch market. - Average monthly income? Hard to say what the average is, since last year I took a break for 7 months and needed another 2 months to find a new opportunity. But when I am working the average gross income would be somewhere above 10.000 EUR ex. VAT. I'm working 40 hours a week. I usually try to work for big clients for at least a year…

I guess the location also makes the difference, right? And you're working for clients onsite, at their office? How often do you get remote opportunities?

Btw, does your personal website help you with finding leads?

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#18

Post by wsc981 »

zerr wrote: post #17
wsc981 wrote: post #5

First of all, I am from The Netherlands. My feedback is based on the Dutch market. - Average monthly income? Hard to say what the average is, since last year I took a break for 7 months and needed another 2 months to find a new opportunity. But when I am working the average gross income would be somewhere above 10.000 EUR ex. VAT. I'm working 40 hours a week. I usually try to work for big clients for at least a year…

I guess the location also makes the difference, right? And you're working for clients onsite, at their office? How often do you get remote opportunities? Btw, does your personal website help you with finding leads?

As far as I know my personal website is down and I have to fix it again. I think it hasn't help me find leads yet, but it might have convinced some companies to invite me for a chat.

I haven't been able to find remote work easily. I did try, at some point and did find one client in New York, but eventually this didn't work out, since I am not much of a designer and the job also involved being strong in design of mobile apps.

Many online platforms like Elance, Zendesk, Toptal seem to be hard to get into. I think after you've build up a small work history on such an online platform one should be able to find decently paying remote jobs. It's certainly something I wish to pursue in the future, but for now I focus on on-site work.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancers what is your average monthly income?

#19

Post by fny »

rememberlenny wrote: post #4

Not a freelancer now, but did a lot of contracting. Key is to price using a WEEKLY RATE. Break your work into chunks of weeks. Do not do hourly work. If the client is looking for less than a week, then its possible to do a daily rate, at a higher average, but the moment you have to break up your tasks as hourly jobs or pay-per-task, you are creating the opportunity to absorb unexpected costs from the client.

I think the trick about hourly is to make sure you don't lock yourself into a fixed hour contract. I typically give a broad estimate, and I also tell the client that if I go over, they will be billed for those hours.
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