HN Explorer

What is your hourly rate (Ror, Europe)?

14 points by rubyeuams ↗ HN
I have been freelancing since a while and noticed that my hourly rate differs quite a bit. Say from €50/hour to €110/hour.

Usually I let my gut feeling set the rate when quoting clients. But I'm a bit afraid that this is not the best way to go. So what is your hourly rate and how do you set it?

About me: 6+ years of ruby/ruby on rails experience, I know how to build and deliver.

6 comments

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danielfoster437
I am not a developer, but have worked with many freelancers. I would abandon the €50/hour projects and use that time to find more €110/hour projects.

There is no set rule for pricing your services as a freelancer, only what you can convince the client to pay. Don't be afraid to over-reach and miss out on a few deals.

rubyeuams
How did you decide or freelancers you were dealing with over-priced?
danielfoster437
The cost of not delivering a product on time usually far exceeds whatever a company would pay a freelancer. As an entrepreneur this means price almost always takes a backseat to reliability. Showing that you can deliver amazing code on schedule with minimal oversight, usually through showing past projects and getting good referrals from previous clients, is the most important thing.

Once you've done that you have a lot more flexibility in pricing.

Keep in mind that price is also a subconscious determinant of quality. If your rate is 110 EUR per hour, a certain number of clients will assume that it is so for good reason.

tmaly
pay yourself first and choose the 110 an hour rate. You have a limited lifetime on this Earth.
skerit
I just started freelancing a few months ago. I mostly "advertise" as working for €75/hour, but for longer term projects this can go lower.
theredoc
This is a topic I'm really interested. Hoping that there would be more replies!

This will be a long post but if you have anything to say, please comment.

Here is my story;

I have more than 7 years of experience on programming, I started at 16 years old with PHP. I have a degree on computer engineering. I have 4 years of Rails experience, 1,5 years professionally. I have a good portfolio of projects I was part of, some of them are open-source.

Also, I'm doing mentorship and training on pair-programming platforms(HackHands, Codementor, AirPair) and I have dozens of happy clients and reviews from them on there.

I started freelancing 6 months ago at $55(€50)/hr and I thought I was getting overpaid because I was seeing that people are getting $20-$30/hr. But my client was really happy and I delivered everything they needed.

I believe the way getting good clients is through networking not platforms like Upwork or Freelancer. My first client reached me through Reddit. But the thing is I live in a 3rd world country and its hard to get high paid clients here.

I've talked with a talented developer who is at Toptal, and he said he is working at $30/hr and rates are generally around $30-$40/hr. Toptal says; 'Hire the top 3%' and they are paying $30/hr to top talented people!

So seeing that people are working $100-$200/hr sounds crazy to me after all this.

Now I have a gig at $35/hr which I really don't want to work on because I think I'm underpaid, but it's the only one I have and I'm struggling to find a new client.