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Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

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Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#251

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

dmje wrote: post #166

Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…

From my experience in management consulting, it’s more industry related than rate related.

Clients in finance tend to be assholes even when you are cheap. The field just tolerates it.

Similarly, industrial customers are used to be put under a lot of pressure regarding costs and delays and will treat you as they are used to be treated.

Here is my trick: if you want to work in a nice environment, choose a job in an environment known to be nice.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#252

Post by jokethrowaway »

100€ per hour.

I'm a contractor on paper and work with my own company (so I can pay 15% in taxes) but it's a long term job, full-time and I don't take holidays. I live in a nice low cost of living European country, even if everything is slowly degrading and I give it 10-15 years before I'll need to move. Found the job (like all my jobs) via word of mouth / personal network. Recruiters offer you significantly less per hour in my experience.

I tried working with the States but I couldn't charge more (they try to pay european prices) and the work was way more stressful. Living in the States is definitely not for me though, way too many homeless and mentally ill people, not to mention the culture gets "progress"ively worse and worse.

If I were employed by a FANG (even ignoring the waste of time of preparing for the interview) I would have to pay way more taxes because I would be an employee. Also they pay way less in Europe.

I guess over time I could make more money, once I progress inside a FANG but that sounds hard, shaky and absolutely not fun.

I need money to build a house so my current plan is to keep contracting and run side businesses to make passive income (currently at around 1/2k per month passive) until I don't need money anymore.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#253

Post by Silhouette »

furyofantares wrote: post #225
fxtentacle wrote: post #6

$2k per day. hourly always invites discussions, for example how are phone calls with mixed topics billed?

i assume that invites a discussion about what a day is. is that an easier discussion? how does it go? or does it not invite discussion?

This is a bit like the clients with low rates or clients with high rates discussion. Clients who will pay high rates actually tend to be more respectful of your time and expertise.

Similarly a chargeable day is a day when you provided the contracted services period. It doesn't come with fixed hours or even a fixed amount of hours. It doesn't come with a guarantee that you won't take a quick call with someone else in the middle of the day or a two-hour lunch date. It does include travel, phone calls, answering "quick questions" on Teams or Slack or whatever they use, and anything else you do to provide the contracted services.

Anyone who doesn't like that can find someone else to work with who is willing to put up with all the other nickel and dime stuff that client will surely try. No-one I worked with on a day rate ever even questioned it. What you get done on the days you charge for will tell a client soon enough if you're providing the value they're paying for and if you are then they won't have any reason to worry about nit-picking the wording in your contract.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#254

Post by joshmanders »

fb03 wrote: post #248
joshmanders wrote: post #5

I specialize in the ability to competently and fully build from the ground up your whole business from design, development, system administration, deployments, testing, seo and other stuff as a single person. My rate is $10,000/week pre-paid monthly.

Josh!!! It's Cadu :) Nice to see you on HN <3 Where's my hugs?

I LOVE YOU BUDDY <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#255

Post by wpietri »

okaram wrote: post #245
wpietri wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Long ago I read a book that mentioned that freelance professionals (accountants, lawyers, etc) tended to bill around 1000 hours per year. That the unbillable time went toward sales, client relations, marketing, learning, etc. I could usually do a little better than a 50% utilization rate for myself, but as you say that money goes to things most people don't have to pay. So the knock-three-zeros-off-salary rule s…

Keep in mind it's not really 50%, more like 65? 2,000 hours means you work 40 hours/week, 50 weeks ... Basically no vacation, just a few holidays or sick days. We budget full time as 1,600 hours

Depends on the people, I'm sure. For a long time 40-hour weeks with two weeks off was pretty standard in the US, which works out to a nice round 2000 hours. A lot of the people prone to going independent are the types to put in more time than that. I sure am. But yes, if you want fewer working hours, that changes the calculations.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#256

Post by joshmanders »

scifibestfi wrote: post #231
joshmanders wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also charge a non-refundable down payment of $100k to sign non-compete or NDA and that doesn’t guarantee I’ll accept the job. Both my rates and this keeps people who aren’t serious about working with me away. Anyone else is most likely worth my time and the cost is acceptable because I don’t work a full 40/hr week for the client. I plan the work to be done for a week and let them know. If it takes me 40hrs ok but m…

Has anyone paid the $100k? Or do they all drop the non-compete and NDA?

Dropped. The rate is mostly a "no I'm not signing your stupid contracts that will harm me accepting future work just because you think your facebook killer is a special snowflake that can be stolen" rate.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#258

Post by Silhouette »

sgjohnson wrote: post #62
tekkk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's net after pension and everything it's not really that surprising. In Finland for example the employee pension rate is 25% of gross. Then tax and employer insurance on top of that and you're left with about half of the total paid sum. Of course, as independent contractor you can set your own pension rate as low as you want but that's a different debate.

Virtually all contractors in the UK are operating through a LLC and paying themselves in dividends, so there's no pension at all, and legally they are not even employees of their businesses (because board members can provide the business with whatever services without being employees). If you go through PAYE, you make yourself an employee, and you must pay yourself a pension. But going through PAYE is a net loss, bec…

Virtually all contractors in the UK are operating through a LLC and paying themselves in dividends

This hasn't been entirely true for a long time and it's almost the opposite of true today. The vast majority of contract work in the UK today is now forced under umbrellas where you'd be an employee of your umbrella firm and not working through your own Ltd. There is still outside IR35 work around but close to 100% of larger (and typically better-paying) clients don't want to get near it because of the risks since the recent changes in the rules.

If you go through PAYE, you make yourself an employee, and you must pay yourself a pension. But going through PAYE is a net loss, because then you also have to pay national insurance not only on your side, but also on the employers' side. Paying NI if you can perfectly legally avoid paying it is stupid.

I urge anyone considering working as a freelancer or contractor in the UK to take the time to talk to a real accountant before trusting this advice. The above paragraph is all kinds of wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#259

Post by EddySchauHai »

noodlesUK wrote: post #201
trhoad wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.

I seriously doubt parent is earning that much. I expect they probably bill avg 10-15 days per month at that rate. Most contractors like them in the UK that I know operate this way most of the time.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, maybe 1 month off a year. All my UK contractor friends make over £550pd and have work whenever they want

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#260

Post by mixmastamyk »

joshmanders wrote: post #5

I specialize in the ability to competently and fully build from the ground up your whole business from design, development, system administration, deployments, testing, seo and other stuff as a single person. My rate is $10,000/week pre-paid monthly.

I do these as well, wonder if you happen to know competent people from the sales/marketing/product-design areas to team up with? I can build 'em but don't have time to help folks show up and take notice.
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