Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

news.ycombinator.com

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#41
I had one client, he paid me 65-70$ for scraping escort sites.. He had it coded from some one in portugese, it was pho scraper.. So i added 7 more sites .. and finally i quit becoz i was not getting private time .. every time there were people arround me Btw i am from india.. ne1 looking for freelancer (php, nodejs, go, etc..) can get in touch..

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#42
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What apps did he make? How did he make money off of them?

I don't want to reveal anything that might jeopardize his apps with competition (and therefore hurt his family's income). He made games (more like word games and puzzles than real-time) and monetized them with ads. One trick he did was to rebrand his existing games with different titles, graphics, etc. to create his own competition, so sometimes he owns multiple apps in the top results for the same game category. Ver…

If you can come up with an interesting enough formula but with varied enough gameplay you can get some cool stuff. Kairosoft comes to mind and I'm sure they've really made bank on their games.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#43

App freelancing (in the US) has been killed by cheap hourly rates thanks to globalization. As a client, why would I pay $100/h for a local Dev versus $10/h for a dev located in India or anywhere else where the cost of living is much lower? As a full time "app" developer I make $200K/y in the US. I tried freelancing on the side but it's pretty worthless. We're talking pennies by hour spent coding.

I know many people who are doing very well in the mobile development freelancing space, at least in the NYC area. Many gigs are still onsite or at least benefit from some kind of physical presence, so if that's a factor, then it's a much more level playing field.

I'm a full-time mobile developer as well. Haven't taken a crack at contracting yet myself, but I think that the key to success is a tried and true one: connections, connections, connections. If you're going on these freelance-farm type job sites, you're in a race to the bottom for poor quality gigs.

Also, I've heard that it's pretty hard to 'get started on the side' because many decent contracts want more of your time than you can reasonably offer when you have a full-time gig. Kind of a chicken-or-the-egg problem with that, but I figure that's the risk of it.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#44
post #23

I'm 1/3 of a three person dev. shop — does that count? We charge 250/person/hr and have been doing 40+ hr weeks for the last few years. We'll also make some margin if we need to sub out occasionally as client needs increase. This stability is really shaky though as all this work was from a single client.

How do consulting shops charge so much? I mean, yes they got higher overhead than a single dev, but that's their own problem and not the problem of the client, so what's the difference fro a single dev here?

You're asking a few questions here. I can answer from my experience working at a consulting shop that charged a lot of money...

> Are they charging more because of overhead?

Partially. There's overhead you wouldn't get with a single developer like office space and administrative overhead. A big overlooked piece of overhead is sales overhead. It's much easier to find 40 hours of consulting work a week than 120 hours of work. If its a premium development shop, the developer salaries are probably higher as well. This all may cut into the margins, but it doesn't really explain why they charge so much.

> Why do they charge so much?

Because they have clients who are willing to pay that much. Plain and simple.

> What does the client get that they wouldn't with a single developer?

Some companies are bad at finding and retaining talent. This includes contractors. They also might not know how to manage a project. For a lot of companies, they need something done, but this simply isn't their area of expertise. Some single developers can manage their own projects, but sometimes they need more than just a single developer. The workload may be much higher than what a single person could manage, and hiring 3 individual developers can be much less efficient than hiring a team of 3 developers who already work well together. Perhaps they need a designer as well, or they're looking for a project manager who is really good at communicating business needs with them.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#45

App freelancing (in the US) has been killed by cheap hourly rates thanks to globalization. As a client, why would I pay $100/h for a local Dev versus $10/h for a dev located in India or anywhere else where the cost of living is much lower? As a full time "app" developer I make $200K/y in the US. I tried freelancing on the side but it's pretty worthless. We're talking pennies by hour spent coding.

Because it will take you 10x longer to complete the project to a satisfactory level of quality. It's a typical 'Pay me now or pay me later' scenario.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#46
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do consulting shops charge so much? I mean, yes they got higher overhead than a single dev, but that's their own problem and not the problem of the client, so what's the difference fro a single dev here?

The single dev isn't charging enough?

Last time I told someone I want 100€ an hour he laughed at me.

I charge per month, but it would be about 40€ an hour.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#47
post #24
post #12

I work a full time iOS gig and do freelancing on the side. Typically I bring in an extra 10-20k per year at around $100 per hour depending on the job.

Sounds awesome. I'm an iOS developer and hoping to go the same route. Where are you based out of?

Good old NYC.

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#48
post #44
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do consulting shops charge so much? I mean, yes they got higher overhead than a single dev, but that's their own problem and not the problem of the client, so what's the difference fro a single dev here?

You're asking a few questions here. I can answer from my experience working at a consulting shop that charged a lot of money... > Are they charging more because of overhead? Partially. There's overhead you wouldn't get with a single developer like office space and administrative overhead. A big overlooked piece of overhead is sales overhead. It's much easier to find 40 hours of consulting work a week than 120 hours o…

So you're saying it's a team factor and a single dev can't get into that 200€/person/hour range?

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#49

I make $7 US dollars an hour designing and developing apps as a full-time employee. I’m paying off a new car, pay rent, and live quite a good life compared to others in my country (third-world country). Compared to other countries salaries, mine is awful. Compared to local salaries, it’s actually about 4x the minimum wage. The cost of living here is quite low (I pay 150$ per month for a single bedroom with bathroom).…

now that you have revealed that you are from a third world country, cheapos in the first world countries will try to outsource work to you, which is very good IMO. But at the same time blaming third world programmers for taking their jobs. Pretty much like blaming China for taking the manufacturing jobs, but first world country people wanting things cheap products from Amazon.

I was going to offer him/her $7.01 an hour. Rats!

Re: Ask HN: How much are you earning as a freelance app developer?

#50

I am a a web (app) developer - not sure if that counts :) Right now I am working as a frontend lead for react apps and make 75-80€ / hour. I am living in Frankfurt, Germany. There is a huge shortage of experienced javascript developers here.

Are you doing this full-time (20days * 8hours * 75€ / month)?

Are you charging per hour?

Post reply on HN