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Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

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Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#201

Post by cosmodisk »

scruple wrote: post #178
edent wrote: post #68

I have three rates. You are a charity, or other worthy cause, or someone I really want to work with - 50% - 100% discount. You are a normal client - 100%. You are either an arsehole or have asked for something very last minute - 150%-200% depending on the mood I'm in. The last one, colloquially known as the fuck-off rate, is probably the best bit of contracting advice I ever got from a colleague. He hated the gig we…

I also operate on a sliding scale. I once charged a ludicrous hourly rate for a client who came to me asking for VB6 work (in 2015) that was very last minute. I genuinely didn't want the work, it landed on my lap through word-of-mouth between a former client (who I had done some VB6 work for a few years prior) and this prospective client, and realized that I needed to adjust my rates to account for a variety of circu…

I did the same recently. I didn't want the job and was quite tired,so I just quoted some stupid price so I won't need to do it. Ended up working the weekend and a bit, which was almost x1.5 of my normal rate.

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#202

Post by cosmodisk »

cgb223 wrote: post #140
edent wrote: post #68

I have three rates. You are a charity, or other worthy cause, or someone I really want to work with - 50% - 100% discount. You are a normal client - 100%. You are either an arsehole or have asked for something very last minute - 150%-200% depending on the mood I'm in. The last one, colloquially known as the fuck-off rate, is probably the best bit of contracting advice I ever got from a colleague. He hated the gig we…

If you don’t charge by the hour and the half day unit is optional, what’s your recommended unit of time or work to measure by?

Days, ideally weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#203

Post by kurupt213 »

jamie_ca wrote: post #173
Khelavaster wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how taxes work at all..

It's not just taxes, though. It's the difference between salary and what's called Fully Burdened Labor Costs. Say you're comparing eg. a FTE with $115k salary, and 4 weeks vacation. Naively, a contractor working those hours is 115 / 48 weeks / 48 hours = $60/hr for the same salary. But the employer is also paying out payroll taxes, insurance, office space/supply expenses, retirement plans (401k) - this typically adds…

Fully burdened employee costs are normally 150% of salary

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#204

Post by woopwoop24 »

throwaway642012 wrote: post #170
woopwoop24 wrote: post #169

Germany, freelancer in "devops" we call it these days (infra automation, container, k8s etc..) with about 7 years of experience in linux and 10 years overall in consulting. i charge around 100€-125€/h (+19% VAT) depending if onsite or remote. i have seen people go for 150€ but these are the ones kicked out first if there is an issue or company needs to save money.

If I may ask, how is the German freelance market in the current environment? I'm on fence about going freelance (Mobile/backend+DevOps) and would love to know your thoughts.

around one offer every two days is the usual, some of them are absolute crap, some so so but some are not bad. i am on freelancermap, linkedin and xing. have to say since covid worked exclusively in banking and insurance, so not so sure what happended outside of my bubble. what is keeping you from doing it?

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#205

Post by ta238911 »

halkony wrote: post #83
ta238911 wrote: post #25

Between $50-$80, senior engineer and consultant.

Not sure where you live, that seems pretty low for your seniority. I'm going into consulting so I'm curious: 1. Do you do it full time? 2. Do you get more clients than you can work for? 3. Are you comfortable financially?

1. I work full time, on a set of projects

2. if all works out, I'm booked for the next 24 month straight - if I do not have clients' projects I have more than enough own projects to work on (I actually wish for some time off for years, but it never happened)

3. I do not live in the us, but in a rich economy and I am comfortable financially; compared to many people I know I live a simple life, why is probably why I do not need to charge $100+ or more - I'm in the top 10% wealth bracket already and looking forward to three more productive decades.

I know people with way less experience charging more, but I'm in no rush.

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#206

Post by rco8786 »

treeman79 wrote: post #74
dewey wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you want a 10.000USD or the 30.000USD surgery? I'd like to have the 0USD surgery, but maybe that's just my inner European.

We don’t have a VAT tax. Free just means you pay with other peoples money while they pay with yours.

We do have sales tax. And plenty of other taxes. And lots of things that we refer to as “free” that are taxpayer funded.

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#207

Post by hardwaresofton »

iancmceachern wrote: post #183
hardwaresofton wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d think so. I don’t Think you should bother building invoicing though. That’s not the point, price discovery is the only point. You could just sell the dataset directly IMO, quarterly data is what people care about, and there’s a reason to buy every single year

You should make a plug in for Freshbooks

Damn guess I should do it…

Won’t anyone rid me of this priest^H idea?

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#208

Post by riekus »

edent wrote: post #68

I have three rates. You are a charity, or other worthy cause, or someone I really want to work with - 50% - 100% discount. You are a normal client - 100%. You are either an arsehole or have asked for something very last minute - 150%-200% depending on the mood I'm in. The last one, colloquially known as the fuck-off rate, is probably the best bit of contracting advice I ever got from a colleague. He hated the gig we…

Gold here, thank you! How do you get your SF clients?

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#209

Post by danielheath »

biztos wrote: post #91
danielheath wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a little under 2000 working hours in a year of fulltime work; you can charge approx double to cover your cost of sales / offer flexibility.

Am I missing something, or do you not have any vacation?

If you work 40 hours * 50 weeks you have 2000 hours (and two weeks off).

If you take 12 weeks off instead of 2, you get 1600 hours.

Re: Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#210

Post by throwaway642012 »

woopwoop24 wrote: post #204
throwaway642012 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may ask, how is the German freelance market in the current environment? I'm on fence about going freelance (Mobile/backend+DevOps) and would love to know your thoughts.

around one offer every two days is the usual, some of them are absolute crap, some so so but some are not bad. i am on freelancermap, linkedin and xing. have to say since covid worked exclusively in banking and insurance, so not so sure what happended outside of my bubble. what is keeping you from doing it?

> what is keeping you from doing it?

Mostly intertia and post-covid fatigue.

Thank you for kicking me in the butt and providing the valuable information :-)

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