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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?

#221

Post by b20000 »

kurupt213 wrote: post #203
jamie_ca wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

yes but that is from the perspective of a big co adding on employee costs and not a consultant that is self employed. you need to make at least 2x what an employee makes in total comp.

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

#222

Post by timtzm »

thunkle wrote: post #159
0x5345414e wrote: post #8

My rate is 165 USD/hr, but I’ll drop it as low as 135 for a long contract (6 months+). I do custom software for the refrigeration industry (mostly simulations, sensor data logging, a lot of web apps, etc.). But yeah like another poster mentioned, I just raise it every time I work with a new customer. Imo hourly rates are kind of bogus because not every hour is the same and hours can’t determine value. Generally I neg…

Cool I've been working on an algorithm to predict when an industrial refrigerator is going bad for a few months now. I wonder if our work overlaps at all.

Hey cool I'm working on power metering for industrial chillers and hope to learn how to notice this too.

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

#223

Post by ris58h »

jononor wrote: post #86
tpxl wrote: post #27

I do backend Java development as a mid-senior engineer (~10 years of experience). I have a good grasp of SQL, git, Spring, ... I do 35€/hr in central/southern Europe, working for a local fintech company (2-3x what I'd get as wage). I plan on rising my rates later this year. I was in talks with a US company, and they balked when I requested 42$/hr as that was what they paid their employees from the US.

You should rise your rate to 2-4x that, and only bother talking to companies that accept such rates (possibly in other regions). If they haggle and you like them / the project, give a symbolic discount like 20%.

Are you speaking from the experience of polish contractor?

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

#224

Post by nivertech »

kwere wrote: post #197
hkhanna wrote: post #195

I'm both a lawyer and a software engineer, so I have two different rates depending on the work I'm doing. My legal fee is $495 an hour, and my engineering fee is $395 an hour. I expect to increase both of those next year. I offer a blended rate for companies that are in need of both legal and software services; these are usually early stage startups, non-profits, and small family offices.

>small family offices interesting, hat kind of work they request? some investment , data feed, etc.. automation?

probably legal and/or technical due diligence

--

https://sv4ie.com/tech-due-diligence-4e6d868f4754

https://sv4ie.com/what-exactly-is-technical-due-diligence-fo...

https://www.embroker.com/blog/due-diligence/

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

#225

Post by zufallsheld »

Escapado wrote: post #111

I am located in germany, work as a fullstack dev with frontend focus (react/vue). I have about 6 years of total dev experience[1]. For full time projects I charge 90-100€/h (+19% VAT) and I exclusively take on remote projects. When I started out at as a freelancer at the beginning of 2020 my rate was 80€/h. If I was approached with short term projects(as in less than 160h of work) I would charge significantly more bu…

Thanks for sharing this!

If your username is the same as the one from the band, then great choice!

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

#226

Post by throwaway642012 »

woopwoop24 wrote: post #213
throwaway642012 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :-)

you can PM me if you have more questions or want to talk in detail :) happy to help

I would love to!

I see no email in your profile, can you please share it?

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

#228

Post by porker »

Silhouette wrote: post #138
samwillis wrote: post #5

I would be particularly interested in hearing what "Full Stack Developers" charge in the UK. I recently started doing freelance/contract work but I'm not really sure what others similar to me change. (I'm particularly experienced (15 years) in Python/Django, JS/Vue, UI/UX)

With that kind of experience level and assuming your abilities are consistent with it I'd agree with others that around £600 is a reasonable target. That's assuming you're finding work through a recruiter who will mark up the end client rate but working outside IR35. If you're willing and able to find clients directly you can push the rate up a bit because there won't be that middleman taking a cut for a while. If yo…

Seeing the numbers in this thread (even for Germany) and comparing to the UK is frankly depressing.

My experience matches everyone else in this sub-thread, £650/day for years and finally reached £700/day. But as these are short term projects it averages to less. For 15 years experience it's not great.

I don't have the option to move to the US but I'd like to pick up US clients remotely. It's the only way I see to earn more.

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

#230

Post by Silhouette »

porker wrote: post #228
Silhouette wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that kind of experience level and assuming your abilities are consistent with it I'd agree with others that around £600 is a reasonable target. That's assuming you're finding work through a recruiter who will mark up the end client rate but working outside IR35. If you're willing and able to find clients directly you can push the rate up a bit because there won't be that middleman taking a cut for a while. If yo…

Seeing the numbers in this thread (even for Germany) and comparing to the UK is frankly depressing. My experience matches everyone else in this sub-thread, £650/day for years and finally reached £700/day. But as these are short term projects it averages to less. For 15 years experience it's not great. I don't have the option to move to the US but I'd like to pick up US clients remotely. It's the only way I see to ear…

I don't have the option to move to the US but I'd like to pick up US clients remotely.

We've (small UK development/consultancy shop) occasionally had US-based clients approach us about small projects. It's not something we'd actively explored until recently because of the potential legal and accounting complications. When we did finally look it turns out it's probably not so difficult after all though we haven't actually tried it for real yet.

The rates that small outsourcing firms or individual contractors charge in the US are so much higher than the UK that a US client could get a bargain working with us while we could be charging much higher rates than we get from UK or European clients. Financially it's a situation where everyone could do well.

I'm a bit surprised that we don't see more trans-Atlantic deals. Maybe a lack of awareness or concern around time zones means people don't really consider it an option? But even California is only an 8 hour gap so with almost everything being primarily remote and async today it should be possible to communicate effectively.

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