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Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

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Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#71

Post by mehrdadn »

Gh0stRAT wrote: post #64
mehrdadn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask how the calculation works? For $75/hr (to take California as an example) you have ~$105k after tax; subtract ~$5k for insurance and you're left with $100k. Whereas for $75k/year you're left with $56k/year after tax. Meaning that when you're on salary, you're pocketing 56% of the money you would as a freelancer. The only way I can make sense of this is if it's freelancers expect to bill around 25h/week... is…

Medical insurance is more like $1,600+/month for a married couple, even more if you have kids. That's ~$20k/year which brings you down to $85k after tax. And did you factor-in having to pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare? I believe that's another 15.3% [0] [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/se...

I just used this actually; I presume they included both halves of Medicare & Social Security: https://www.irscalculators.com/tax-calculator

I was assuming single/young (so low-cost insurance), I wasn't really thinking of family/children but that's a good point!

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#72

Post by nunez »

While there aren't published market rates, you can get an idea of what people are charging by computing per-hour compensation from salary data found in sites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor and adding a 20-40% premium on top (to account for additional expenses such as insurance and taxes).

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#73

Post by mehrdadn »

fullStackOasis wrote: post #68
mehrdadn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask how the calculation works? For $75/hr (to take California as an example) you have ~$105k after tax; subtract ~$5k for insurance and you're left with $100k. Whereas for $75k/year you're left with $56k/year after tax. Meaning that when you're on salary, you're pocketing 56% of the money you would as a freelancer. The only way I can make sense of this is if it's freelancers expect to bill around 25h/week... is…

Your assuming that the freelancer is billing out 2000/year. That's not usual. Some freelancers can, but many cannot. The risk of long periods of downtime are bundled into that rate. Other expenses can be legal, own equipment, development, training, own office, etc. It depends on the freelancer's situation; you might wind up putting a lot of money back into the business. In that case, $75/hour is not really very much…

I see, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#74

Post by dirtnugget »

mcv wrote: post #55
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

You will not find a standard range of freelancer rates, just as you won't find a standard range of developer salaries in the United States. The $20-30/hr job listing you shared will not attract any experienced Python developers. Experienced Python developers can easily secure jobs with $100K+/year salaries and benefits in any medium sized city. That job listing is searching for entry-level Python engineers who don't…

But that also means that these advertisements won't find any good developers. These super-low rates are clearly trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The best bet is that these ads are aiming at developers from poorer countries where rates are much lower.

I’m happy with the point that this listing might cater to people in Eastern Europe/Asia/Africa

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#75

Post by vitaflo »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

You will not find a standard range of freelancer rates, just as you won't find a standard range of developer salaries in the United States. The $20-30/hr job listing you shared will not attract any experienced Python developers. Experienced Python developers can easily secure jobs with $100K+/year salaries and benefits in any medium sized city. That job listing is searching for entry-level Python engineers who don't…

Well said. As someone who's been contracting full time for over a decade, I have never used a public job listing to find a gig (nor would I). Not only are the rates low, they are usually non-negotiable. I've always gotten my gigs via my network and word-of-mouth.

As you said, it allows negotiation in rate, and when you come recommended you already have a leg up on negotiation. After a while you tend to figure out what you're able to charge, and its highly dependent on the client.

Public companies, and especially startups will pay a higher rate. I tend to get around ~125/hr in my MCOL Midwest city (highest has been 150/hr at a startup). That's about where the limit is for me in my location.

Private companies tend to be more stingy. I normally can get ~110/hr out of them. I will never take less than 100/hr, and never have. When your network is big enough you don't need to take every gig and can say no if you don't like the terms. I have to turn down more gigs than I take as it is because I'm so booked up with work.

I would also add that rates are certainly location dependent. On the coasts I would expect a higher rate than I get in the Midwest just because of cost of living. Certain cities also are more accepting to contractors than others (mine is). All of this will have an impact on what kind of rates and gigs you can get.

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#76

Post by smoe »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #19
sourc3 wrote: post #3

Expected? Yes. Normal? Yes. Only thing there is out there? No. For every $30/hr posting on the net, there is another one for $100. I also personally know of folks who are making +$150 with Django. It really depends on who you work for. Although you will see a lot more of `build Uber for $5K` type of one off jobs, there are some reputable companies who need more capacity on new projects. If I were you I would cast a w…

Who pays >150? I always hear about this but neither as freelancer or as employee who hires freelancers I have ever seen somebody making that much as freelancer. Sometimes consulting companies charge that much but the freelancers probably get paid only a fraction of that.

When I was freelancing (mostly Swiss companies) in the end 180$/hour was my starting point for negotations.

For bigger multi month projects i would come down quite a bit, but for small ones i wouldn't budge.

Its not something you can pull off when new to freelancing and more importantly don't have connections / referrals.

Its a comparable price to what small agencies charge (or charged, haven't been working/living in Switzerland in years).

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#78

Post by fullStackOasis »

vitaflo wrote: post #65
davidmurdoch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you meant 150/hr... Freelancers have costs that W2 employees do not, like self employment taxes and the full cost of health insurance.

They also have benefits that W2 employees do not, like deducting expenses, $50k+ in allowable retirement contributions per year, and the 20% QBI deduction.

You are certainly correct, and those are nice to have.

It pays to keep in mind that in order to deduct an expense, you have to pay the expense. So as a freelancer, when I pay for my computer, that's $1500 out of pocket. Then I don't pay quite so much in taxes. But I've still got $1500 less at the end of the year than if I worked at a business and they were paying for my computer.

$50K+ into your retirement is also great, but it's most useful for those who are making so much money that they can afford to put that money away and not touch it until they're 62. Some people can certainly do that, but I doubt that it's very common. Even FTE often don't max out their 401K. Here's a fool article that claims the average is rate is 7%: https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/15/average-americans...

Re: Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US

#80

Post by cs02rm0 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #19
sourc3 wrote: post #3

Expected? Yes. Normal? Yes. Only thing there is out there? No. For every $30/hr posting on the net, there is another one for $100. I also personally know of folks who are making +$150 with Django. It really depends on who you work for. Although you will see a lot more of `build Uber for $5K` type of one off jobs, there are some reputable companies who need more capacity on new projects. If I were you I would cast a w…

Who pays >150? I always hear about this but neither as freelancer or as employee who hires freelancers I have ever seen somebody making that much as freelancer. Sometimes consulting companies charge that much but the freelancers probably get paid only a fraction of that.

Someone paying not just for a dev but a dev with significant domain knowledge in a niche area.
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