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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?

#131

Post by joshmn »

hakanderyal wrote: post #124

I build web apps from start to finish by myself (architecture, design, development, database, servers, marketing page etc.). I bill $500/day, but do project based billing, with 50% payment up-front, 25% on first preview, and 25% on delivery. For improvements and new features on existing projects, I estimate the avg. monthly work and we do monthly retainer agreements. I usually work with seed stage startups (usually r…

When you come back around to missing client work, remember that some guy on HN begged you to raise your rate. Doesn't matter where you are located. value == value; value != location.

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

#132

Post by swader999 »

kache_ wrote: post #75
prismatix wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that contractors don't receive benefits (health care, dental, etc) and have to pay about 30% in taxes. So in reality, the pay is about equal once you factor in that.

I live in Canada & I've done the spreadsheet math. I can probably ~triple my salary if I go balls to the walls. Insurance is a drop in the bucket (I can just outright buy my drugs). I'm just kinda comfy where I'm at, and I'm having fun at my job.

Agree, I've never seen a benefit package that gets me excited. With our health care system here, the FTE jobs are a lot less compelling vs the contractor route. About 1/20 that go the FTE equity route seem to hit the jackpot.

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

#133

Post by TruthWillHurt »

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.

I'm assuming you do Frontend? What else? What frameworks would you suggest?

I feel I could definitely build a project myself, but I find FE to be very time consuming.

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

#134

Post by koevet »

swader999 wrote: post #122
koevet wrote: post #102

My rate is 1000 Euro/day. There is flexibility on the rate, if the project is particularly interesting.

Any thoughts or concerns on how to deal with inflationary environment and the falling Euro?

I'm based in Germany, so the tax pressure is quite high, thinking of moving back to Italy (where I'm originally from) to benefit of the massive tax break for "returning Italians" (or anti brain drain tax advantages).

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

#135

Post by dsr_ »

madaxe_again wrote: post #108
jll29 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

If you scare off 80% of your recurring clients, you've drastically lowered your workload without penalty.

If you scare off just 50% of your recurring clients, you've halved your workload and are making more money.

The downside is if you scare off more than 80% of your recurring clients.

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

#136

Post by leto_ii »

b0m wrote: post #10
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.

Where would one go and look for those kind of vacancies?

I think in the beginning recruiters on LinkedIn. Note however that like all parasites they will try to skim a lot off the top. Worse than that, some will try to lock you in and write in clauses saying that they should get a share of any other future contracts you might have - make sure to never sign smth like that.

Once you have a few 6 month contracts under your belt and you can get good references you can probably find things without relying on intermediaries.

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

#137

Post by koevet »

factorialboy wrote: post #104
koevet wrote: post #102

My rate is 1000 Euro/day. There is flexibility on the rate, if the project is particularly interesting.

What do you offer for that rate?

I'm quite a generalist, my strongest expertise is the JVM ecosystem, but these days I'm helping clients to migrate to cloud infra.

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

#138

Post by hakanderyal »

joshmn wrote: post #131
hakanderyal wrote: post #124

I build web apps from start to finish by myself (architecture, design, development, database, servers, marketing page etc.). I bill $500/day, but do project based billing, with 50% payment up-front, 25% on first preview, and 25% on delivery. For improvements and new features on existing projects, I estimate the avg. monthly work and we do monthly retainer agreements. I usually work with seed stage startups (usually r…

When you come back around to missing client work, remember that some guy on HN begged you to raise your rate. Doesn't matter where you are located. value == value; value != location.

I totally agree that value != location, but clients' budgets absolutely depends on the location. I only work with local clients, and my rates are on the expensive sides of the scale.

For comparison, my rates are about 25 times of minimum wage.

I know that I could make more working internationally, but I was happy in my comfort zone. If my indie maker/single founder adventure doesn't work out (happened in the past), I'll keep your advice in mind.

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

#139

Post by fifafu »

Germany, mostly doing iOS, macOS native (Objc & Swift), Android (Kotlin), Hybrid (Ionic/Capacitor) & Web (Angular + React). ~ 10 years of experience. Working with lots of low level communication protocols for controlling industrial field devices from native apps or web apps. However I never decline a project based on technology and have done all sort of other things as well.

I usually charge 120€ per hour (working mostly for big german companies). Currently mostly helping various international teams of my clients and not doing much dev work myself anymore. Usually my contracts are at least 500 hours.

However I do this in addition to my own software projects that sell pretty well. This gives me the flexibility to decline any customer project I don’t like. (Or if they want me to do scrum)

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

#140

Post by joshmanders »

candiddevmike wrote: post #118
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.

For those drooling at this: you probably don't want this work. The clients who pay this amount are typically soul crushingly bad to work with, and you're under the gun to deliver 10k worth of value both to secure future work with the client and ensure your reputation stays clean. One bad experience can sink you with other clients, folks talk. IMO, build something for you and sell it vs building something for other pe…

This is not accurate at all. I've found people who pay these rates are better to work with and demand less.

You know that trope all startup people say "raise your prices and get rid of the low value high cost customers"

Same thing.

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