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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?

#101

Post by wcarss »

ryanSrich wrote: post #76
scrollaway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply put: Talk to people who have more money and higher expectations, and highly value efficiency (OP's selling point of being a "single person" means not dealing with a whole team, back&forth comms, etc). Don't talk to your local barber who wants a website to show up on google maps. I have a similar weekly rate but $200 hourly; How I bill depends on the client (though yes, gravitating more and more towards weekly…

This doesn’t answer my question. How do you find people “who have more money and higher expectations, and highly value efficiency”? > “Don't talk to your local barber who wants a website to show up on google maps.” The specific case I was referring to was a series seed funded startup that needed to build an MVP. Even for them $10,000 was too much. They ended up finding someone for half that to build their entire V1.…

Your last point there is the stinger: they rebuilt everything themselves after going cheaper to start. So: they had the money, and they had cause to spend it, but they chose not pay you for your service, and as a result they likely paid more in the long run. It is a (admittedly pretty tough!) sales task, but it is the task: you had to convince them that $10k was worth it for you.

Once they have 3+ programmers working full time, they'll be spending _at least_ $15k every single week on their site/app -- likely way more. Save them even a single near-future month of crap-rewriting, "switching frameworks", infrastructure headaches, "one-click signup", getting their shaky foundations sorted out, etc., and it's a very clear win.

I've seen founder and first contractor tech debt that was really hurting the business take _a year_ to clear out, because once the business is running at all, you can't just swap out the engine. Heck, I've seen it take 5 years! Making the right choice today can really change their whole outcome, from struggling or closing to thriving -- and a bad contractor is not the right choice. (etc...)

You have to show them: your rate is just a demonstration of your value. If they pick you, they're gonna be laughing all the way to the bank.

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

#103

Post by doctorhandshake »

bubblehack3r wrote: post #17

I'm a cyber security specialist (in web application security) with a few certifications and 10+ years of experience. I charge usually $350 an hour unless it's something I estimate will require the help of an outsider to which I may go as high at $1k an hour. Answering everyone asking how we find clients - I love public speaking and so I try to do as much as I can. 80% of my clients saw me speak, the other 20% come fr…

Forgive me if this is obvious but how do you get speaking opportunities? Are you applying to calls for presentations at conferences?

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

#105

Post by mjfisher »

sgjohnson wrote: post #62
tekkk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Virtually all contractors in the UK are operating through a LLC and paying themselves in dividends, so there's no pension at all, and legally they are not even employees of their businesses (because board members can provide the business with whatever services without being employees). If you go through PAYE, you make yourself an employee, and you must pay yourself a pension. But going through PAYE is a net loss, bec…

That's not universally true. Most of the contractors I know are a mixture of PAYE and dividend (pension requirements don't apply to directors and paying nominal NI secures a state pension on retirement). It's usually the setup a good accountant will suggest.

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

#107

Post by corobo »

£75/hr was my last freelance rate for some PHP dev work I did.

Got a few too many plates spinning at the moment though so only doing oldschool Linux sysadmin stuff (pets vs cattle) outside the day job. I'd probably bill cheaper for that as it's less of a time sink and the tasks are either easy fixes or interesting.

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

#108

Post by madaxe_again »

jll29 wrote: post #67
madaxe_again wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man. I (CISSP, CISA), 20 years of experience, everything from development to dev management to sales and marketing to finance to fundraising, the whole shebang, do ISO27001 ISMS’s and coach through certifications… for $70/hr. But then, my clients are based in the U.K., where technology is still generally seen as worthless.

That's what a (Master-level) plumber charges per hour in Germany. By offering such discounted rates, people consider you 'less valuable' a priori. I have indeed heard anti-"IT" sentiments in the UK, where managers often come from outside disciplines (e.g. "politics, philosophy and economics" type of oxbridge degrees). Some of these people adjust quickly and pick up technical skills naturally, whereas others couldn't…

Fair. Thank you. You’ve just inspired me to fire off a round of emails announcing a 500% rate increase, listing the pretty significant accomplishments I have achieved for each client, and underlining the point that their businesses would likely not exist were it not for my support over the many years I have worked with them. I don’t exaggerate - many of them would never have got off the ground without me dragging them through the startup thorns and driving their first few years of technical sales.

Either they’ll like it, or I’ll just quit technology, as the resentment just keeps growing.

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

#109

Post by eertami »

madaxe_again wrote: post #80
bubblehack3r wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it is less technical correct? I find that there are a lot of auditing firms out there willing to do compliance work for cheap therefor bringing down the prices (still not super low). Technical auditing and training in cyber security was always a kind of niche that allows you to charge more.

No, I typically end up filling the roles of CTO, CISO - I can advise, implement, whatever, on virtually any stack. It’s just that in the U.K., technology skills have little to no value.

There are definitely companies in the UK that will pay competitive rates for tech. $70/hr is lower than the median contracting rates for the UK, and I'd be suspicious if someone with 20 years experience was that cheap. I'd expect at minimum to be paying 1000 GBP/day.

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

#110

Post by bubblehack3r »

doctorhandshake wrote: post #103
bubblehack3r wrote: post #17

I'm a cyber security specialist (in web application security) with a few certifications and 10+ years of experience. I charge usually $350 an hour unless it's something I estimate will require the help of an outsider to which I may go as high at $1k an hour. Answering everyone asking how we find clients - I love public speaking and so I try to do as much as I can. 80% of my clients saw me speak, the other 20% come fr…

Forgive me if this is obvious but how do you get speaking opportunities? Are you applying to calls for presentations at conferences?

I take part in local meetups who are always looking for speakers and apply to CFP.
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