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Ask HN: How much?

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Re: Ask HN: How much?

#71

Post by ujjwalg »

christofd wrote: post #67
z8000 wrote: post #57

Boy am I in the wrong business if these kids can knock out CRUD apps for $100K.

Well, Laurent charged only $ 500 USD for his solution (but that's an anomaly). If you are serious about web apps, then scaling the back end comes into play, which means getting into distributed systems. Networking, security and SysAdmin become relevant as well. I think it's fair to charge up to $100K with a college education and/or work experience in the field. Other professions do so as well. Go pick on other profes…

so you are saying $500/hour is industry average? Hackeronymous mentioned that he charged $100k for a 1000 hour work which he could have done in almost 1/6th time if he was experienced. I am not sure about the industry average, but I work through guru/elance/odesk and average seems to be $50-$150 for an experienced developer.

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#72

Post by req2 »

tptacek wrote: post #62
whatusername wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't forget payroll tax, supplied laptop/desk/electricity/etc, sick leave, annual leave, any skills development, the fact that you're also doing sales (which is probably more than 70K).. Just because you have 70,000 listed on your annual pay summary - does not in any way mean that's how much your company spends to keep you employed. When you are a freelancer - you take on a lot of those costs yourself.

You're making the same mistake made upthread; price by value, not by cost. Payroll costs, leave, utilities, all irrelevant. Freelancers make more because they accept risk. Customers pay extra to mitigate scheduling risk, recruiting risk, and project risk. (Yes, you're not viable if you can't at least pay freelancer overhead and still have a living wage, but that has nothing to do with what your bill rate is.)

Ah, I see the disconnect I made- I started talking about the 'doing fine' comment on the yearly salary, rather than the initial topic of pricing.

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#73

Post by christofd »

ujjwalg wrote: post #71
christofd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Laurent charged only $ 500 USD for his solution (but that's an anomaly). If you are serious about web apps, then scaling the back end comes into play, which means getting into distributed systems. Networking, security and SysAdmin become relevant as well. I think it's fair to charge up to $100K with a college education and/or work experience in the field. Other professions do so as well. Go pick on other profes…

so you are saying $500/hour is industry average? Hackeronymous mentioned that he charged $100k for a 1000 hour work which he could have done in almost 1/6th time if he was experienced. I am not sure about the industry average, but I work through guru/elance/odesk and average seems to be $50-$150 for an experienced developer.

No, in the example on this thread Laurent, a Belgian programmer, charged $ 500 USD for the whole solution, the whole shebang. (He could have just given it away for free, since the main point was to establish a reference)

Although, I admit... this example is really just a CRUD app, with no advanced server back end.

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#75

Post by curoi »

christofd wrote: post #50
Laurentvw wrote: post #8

Just for the sake of giving us more information, would you be willing to compare your RoR app with a website I made a while ago. I got paid $500 to make http://www.solafcars.com (works in multiple languages, includes an admin panel, everything on the site is editable). I would assume your RoR app was much bigger, but let us know how it compares. I know I got underpaid though.

You made a triple-language supported database application with immaculate crisp graphic design and well thought-out layout for $500 dollars??? Your solution btw is about as good as it gets for a small-biz website. I second the opinion that your pricing is off by one or two orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, I wonder how jobs like this effectively lower the expected cost for other business. When does the owner's brother approach me and ask why he can't have a top-notch custom webapp for $500?

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#76

Post by antidaily »

I used to throw out numbers and almost always underbid. These days I ask for the budget, figure out how many hours that comes out to, and tell them what they get. I never give a number before the potential client tells me what they can spend. They know what they can afford so why play games?

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#77

Post by lzell »

tptacek wrote: post #60
christofd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's in british pounds, not USD. Addition: did the math at www.oanda.com (currency conversion). GBP is LESS than what I thought: 1.63842 USD. So, that's 900 bucks a day, resulting in $ 110-120 USD/ hour.

Yes, I know. It would be quite low in USD.

"We're hiring a Rails/jQ developer. NYC or Chicago"

Someone should take you up on $120 per hour being low!

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#78

Post by qhoxie »

hackeronymous wrote: post #34
Tichy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100000$ for two months work seems like a good price.

I should probably mention that even though I spent 20h/day working on it, I spent/spend virtually every waking hour either reading/writing/thinking about writing software/business. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, I don't party. I live with my fiancee, and work pretty much every waking hour on something or other. I don't have a blog because it would consume too much time, and I don't interact with other developers be…

I don't interact with other developers because I worry that it will pull me toward the middle of the bell curve

This will almost surely be damaging to your career and education. If this means that you are too easily influenced or cannot identify a good influence, then I would focus on improving that in yourself.

Surrounding yourself with intelligent people in a field such as this is incredibly important. You are missing out otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: How much?

#80

Post by Devilboy »

jroes wrote: post #26
Tichy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100000$ for two months work seems like a good price.

hmm. even for a year's worth of work it seems like a good price. 100k/year gross working only 20 hours a week is pretty badass if you ask me. The average (full-time) web developer salary according to salary.com is 70k/year.

Sure but at most shops the client will be charged about 3x the salaries of the developers - to pay for overheads and so on.
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