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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?

#51

Post by tekkk »

sgjohnson wrote: post #35
francis-io wrote: post #26

in the uk, everyone wants to work on daily rates. 600pd-650pd as a devops engineer. So, £75, or $86 an hour. This is 5 days a week, 40 hours a week. I bill around £14k a month and after taxes i walk away with about £7k a month.

> I bill around £14k a month and after taxes i walk away with about £7k a month. You should employ some sort of a tax-reduction strategy. Paying 50% of your gross in direct taxes is absolutely batshit crazy. I used to contract for £350-450 per day as a PHP backend dev and paid an effective 30% tax rate. Which is still crazy insane high, but it's not 50%. Does your 50% figure includes VAT? Because if that's not VAT in…

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.

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

#53

Post by davedx »

vilius wrote: post #4

I’m also curious what’s a good way finding projects for generalists. My contracting experience was that I ended up doing specialized work even though I would able to complete the project from start to finish.

Startups! They love generalists.

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

#54

Post by i_dont_know_ »

I generally bill around $175/hr to make whatever technology problems you have work out :) (Note I'm based out of Europe, though, reading some of the stuff here I should probably charge more anyways)

That's my generalized rate when the person paying me is non-technical and the actual work involved isn't clear or known to them ahead of time. I spend part of the time coming up with a plan so they know what's going to happen, of course, and coming up with estimates.

If it's a technical person or the problem is better-defined, then I charge different 'specialist' rates that vary based on the task and the rough 'market rate' for such a task.

Sometimes, also, it's just an unusually fun task or a task for a nonprofit or something, in which case I work with their budget and my intrinsic motivation and try to come up with something fair.

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

#55

Post by bubblehack3r »

PaulWaldman wrote: post #43
bubblehack3r wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can go anywhere from one hour (e.g awareness training) to a full month (e.g complex web application pentest)

Ironically, I've found it's easier to charge higher rates for longer engagements.

Although I charge a flat fee, I've found that companies tend to be more accepting to my pricing when it's a longer engagement than a shorter one

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

#56

Post by jononomo »

OhNoNotAgain_99 wrote: post #18
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.

you seem to be on the low side, i do 4000p/day not less

I recommend that you double your rates -- you're worth more than you think.

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

#57

Post by jononomo »

hollywood_court wrote: post #23
typeofhuman wrote: post #9

Southeast USA. $100/hr for everything (meetings, development work, bug fixes, ...). Took me a while to be honest with myself and finally charge for all of my time. Maybe it's confidence? Never had an issue from a client with this arrangement.

You should probably charge more. Automobile repairs techs in Alabama charge more than that. But I’d like to know where you find work because I haven’t found many clients in the SE that wish to spend money.

Repairing an automobile is a more difficult and valuable skill set, however.

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

#58

Post by hollywood_court »

jononomo wrote: post #57
hollywood_court wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably charge more. Automobile repairs techs in Alabama charge more than that. But I’d like to know where you find work because I haven’t found many clients in the SE that wish to spend money.

Repairing an automobile is a more difficult and valuable skill set, however.

Absolutely and the tools required often cost far more than a developer will ever spend during the course of their career.

But $100 per hour is too cheap. I charged more than that for carpentry repairs to homes and commercial buildings.

The local PepBoys charges $122 per hour and they’re aren’t capable of much more than oil changes and tire repairs.

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

#59

Post by wofo »

leto_ii wrote: post #2

In Amsterdam NL a backend engineer could expect 80-100 euros/hr. > 100 is also possible, but you may get into specialization territory.

Also based in NL, "Amsterdam" area (Utrecht). As people have mentioned elsewhere, it depends. My current long-term (6+ months) contract is at €95/hr, working as part of a great team of developers on an Elixir backend, and being able to learn Elixir (which I didn't know beforehand) on the job. I have also done smaller projects (2 months), a bit more specialized, on the side for €125/hr.

By the way, I am not totally convinced about weekly vs hourly billing. In my case, hourly billing has worked well. I just make sure I bill for _everything_ I do for the client, also the time I spend learning stuff, and communicate clearly about it. People hire me because I can figure out stuff quickly, not because I know all there is to know about programming (though I do think I have a strong background).

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