I worked on top of my full time job doing web dev for Ad agencies, usually php, asp.net or CMS work. Billed at $80/hr, probably netting 40-60k per year on the side. I had always hoped it would lead me to a career as an independent, but that rate is not enough to make a living with a family. I eventually made it to being an independent, but I had to switch to doing enterprise consulting in a niche market at a much higher rate.
Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#52My actual rate is 100 €/hr for developing work. I charge way less for skype calls, tests, discussions.
I am deeply embedded inside the small company I consult for, it is extremely nice because people trust me, are not in my way and are just looking for results.
Really happy, however since I don't only bring coding experience but also business acume I would definitely increase my rate to 150 €/hr .
People come to me with problems, I make sure they actually have that problem, I listen to the solution they propose, I actually make my own proposal about what should be done considering both business and technologies, we talk a bit, more problem or constraints arise, we tweak a bit whichever proposal is better and then I go ahead and I implement it.
Time spend talking between 10 and 30 minutes, client have its solution about ready the day after. We are both happy.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great to hear you are happy, but I do think you're being exploited. I'm pretty sure you can flip burgers for £12. I hope this motivates you to ask for more.
I'm a little hesitant to ask for more, because I'm really not in a position right now (for a couple of months, anyway) to be able to afford losing that extra income...
I sympathize with that, but what you should also consider is that by greatly undercharging the market rate, you're actually depressing wages for other in your peer group.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#54For a couple of longer term customers I charge $145/hr.
I'm working a full time gig now and haven't taken on any additional work in ages, but depending on contract length I would start at $170 and up.
As I've seen posted here and elsewhere if you're experienced and charge less than yearly salary/2080 * 3 you are giving money back.
(My wife worked as a buyer at one of the national labs and had to purchase contractors, should used to have to tell them what to ask for because more often than not it would be too low for her to quote them out.)
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#55I used to charge $50 USD per hour, but I kept upping my rates. Soon I charged $100 per hour, and then $125 hour. The highest I ever got for programming/consulting was $150 USD per hour, but I don't charge that anymore. I've moved on to day rates. Now I bill around $800 per day, but I only work about 6 super-focused hours, and I use the Pomodoro method every day. My clients are happy because I get a lot of work done,…
Definitely recommend billing by the day (or even week). It can make a huge difference in your relationship with the client and helps get them past thinking about how much you work and focus more on what you accomplish. On a side note I actually offer billing by the half day, but price a half day at more than half a full day. This is intended to encourage clients to batch up work rather than feed it to me in dribs.
Well done. Daily billing is loads better than hourly billing. I think I made an extra $10,000 in a year, just because I billed by the day.
And you are right. A day rate starts to shift the focus on the outcomes of the project, and less on how much it costs.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#56We're a YC company that put together a visualizer for freelance engineering and design rates. It draws on a few thousand data points from our freelance invoice and contract product. You can filter by location, type of work, and experience: https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates
This tool is awesome. All the other surveys I find seem to hit the low end, but if this data is true, then the rates I've been quoting are spot on.
Thanks for posting this.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#57PHP/Node/Phonegap Development in South Africa - R600/hour (about $50) for local customers, $70/hour for US based and 50 euro/hour for European based customers. I think I need to up my rates.
If you have solution for background GPS updates on Cordova, shoot me a mail ;) ( without the popular component which cost a lot for what it is
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#58I used to charge $50 USD per hour, but I kept upping my rates. Soon I charged $100 per hour, and then $125 hour. The highest I ever got for programming/consulting was $150 USD per hour, but I don't charge that anymore. I've moved on to day rates. Now I bill around $800 per day, but I only work about 6 super-focused hours, and I use the Pomodoro method every day. My clients are happy because I get a lot of work done,…
I'm 18 years old, doing full-stack web dev for ~2 years (Django, node.js, whatever.js, no wordpress stuff) and charge ~35-40 euro/hour while studying computer science.
I get most of my projects through word-of-mouth and I'm currently trying to create products that allow me to build a small company - I'm partnering up with some software developers, entrepreneurs and a project manager.
It's not uncommon that web agencies in Germany only charge 70 euro/hour, so I would like to hear what's necessary to charge something like 100-150 euro/hour - seems like those rates are only possible in the US or doing specialized things like SAP consulting. It's difficult to compare those US numbers because the german system seems to be very different wrt salaries - 60-70k is considered good even for experienced developers, while it seems that those numbers are absolutely sub-par for US developers.
Would love to hear some tips on how to acquire new clients (especially in non-tech industries) and how to find interesting business problems to solve.
My strategy would be to reach out to local companies, analyze their businesses and build solutions that save them time and money (very similar to business consulting except doing software engineering) and getting inspiration for SaaS businesses. Would like to hear your opinion about this way.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#59We're a YC company that put together a visualizer for freelance engineering and design rates. It draws on a few thousand data points from our freelance invoice and contract product. You can filter by location, type of work, and experience: https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates
To clarify, these are rates that freelancers quote via our contract tool and are paid for via our invoicing tool, so it's pretty verified. We also allow users to submit their rates, but we weight those much less than the data verified by client payments.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing?
#60I freelance on .net projects for 70€ per hour, now I also doing e-commerce for myself which gets me excited now.
Also busy with GPS webapplications on asp.Net mvc (embedded device who track trucks and the refrigerator °), WordPress sites, NodeJS ( MVP's),,..
I have a Cordova app before I go to clients, currently landing on too much work because of it ( it's a great conversation starter and builds trust). Will up hourly rates soon, but have a lot of work the next months ( mostly creating webshops for clients). I also work full-time.
My webshop currently lands me 500€/ month without marketing, it's something totally different than full-stack development.
I also did something with Pokemon Go to learn how Facebook worked. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12858993 i had the #2 fb page in Belgium. We did events to earn some money with it, it's the #1 rated comment ;)
Currently notified all me clients that i will probably have some delay, but nothing was planned for this month. I do put longer hours currently then i want for now, just to make sure everything will land on time... ( 16 hours per day at the moment, hope soon everything will be back to normal)
Also use a lot of jenkins and automation tools, i hate manual labor. My collegues use 4 tools i wrote for myselve every day. It just takes off a hell of time of lookup up usernames, passwords, phone numbers, logging hours, ... I guess you only need to use it in a "ux friendly" enough way, but just don't sink too much time creating it ;)