Ask YC: What are the going rates for consulting gigs?
My primary interest is in hearing what LAMP, Django and RoR gigs are paying, but I'd also love to hear what DB consultants are making as well.
* edit *
Okay, I just want to clarify my question a little. Despite what people may infer, I'm not asking "How much can I charge?" I'm career changing, and I worked contract work as an ER/ICU nurse for 8 years. Nurses in the contract biz were pretty free and open with hourly salaries and living allowance ranges. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) that there is a similar culture in the software world.
I am asking for a rough ball-park. I'm looking for a range that people are making from "Oh, my God, they got screwed and will be eating ramen for months." to "I can't she had the balls to ask for that rate."
Not knowing the tech contracting business too well, I'm just asking for a lay of the land. If this is a taboo subject.... my bad. Please disregard.
112 comments
[ 110 ms ] story [ 384 ms ] threadMainly, it varies depending on whether you're any good (and whether people know that you're good). If you're asking "how high should I set my rate" - unfortunately, I don't think there's an easy answer to that, without knowing you.
But, I'm mostly looking for ballpark figures, I'm not really interested in rate setting. I'm career changing, and I should be graduating from school after this summer. I'm mostly trying to get a feel for rates.
and another one from Michael Hartl, "How I can charge so much":
http://eikonoklastes.org/articles/2007/09/26/how-i-can-charg...
A few examples:
- Hung out with the same guy at Tuesday night Bible study for 3 years. One day he said, "I heard you tell someone you know something about computers. My company needs software for our factory. Do you know anything about that?" Turned into 50K over the next 6 months.
- Went to an industry dinner/speaker event. The stranger next to me asked what I did. I told him. He asked if I ever did <xyz>. Before I could answer, my partner joked, "That's how we made our first million." The stranger said, "How'd you like to make your second million?" We talked all night and started work 2 days later. 20K in 2 months. All from a joke.
- A contractor friend got a great full time job. She asked me to "take over" her maintenance accounts (3 of them). Many thousands part time over the next 3 years.
- Had another friend who I met for lunch once a month for years. She always talked about her job. One day, she suddenly had to move out of state for personal reasons. I emailed her employer, telling what I did (which was exactly what they had her doing). Turned into 4 years of work.
- Met my aunt's next door neighbor while sitting on her porch. My aunt said, "Eddie's into computers." He said he had a friend who owned a pawn shop with a computer running Windows that "froze" every day at 3:00, their busiest hour. He was going nuts. (Licking my chops), I said I could look into it. A 6 month gig with all new cool software (not Windows).
- Went to a Monday Night Football party. A friend of a friend who owned a small distribution company said the bank wouldn't lend them any more money until they computerized their inventory. After 3 months of me (for $20K), they were able to borrow $300K. Pretty good deal for everyone.
- A friend was offered a 6 month gig in Detroit for $60/hour. He didn't want to move to Detroit. I took it. Got an efficiency for $400/month, drove my own car there, and dialed in to my other clients. 6 months later, moved home. Not a bad deal.
- Had another friend who owned a small software house. (Didn't know it until I knew him for over a year). He coded everything with linked lists because he didn't know anything about databases. I converted all his software to DBMS over a 6 month period. Again, everyone happy.
I could go on and on, but you kinda get the picture. And I haven't even touched on the web stuff.
The demand still far outweighs the supply for good software. If you know what you're doing (a big assumption), there's millions of people who need what you do. So get out there and talk to them!
Unethical to aid a pawn shop, especially if you are a Christian. But hey, who am I to judge.
Edit: pawn shops are unethical from a Christian viewpoint, as they charge interest. And the parent said he was doing Bible study. But again, who am I to give advice on such topics as an heathen. Just downmod and show me I'm wrong.
Edit: and the downmods restart. I would like to see some arguments against my remark. Something with more substance, besides obvious re-statements and appeals to number such as 'but everybody does it'. I thought HN visitors would be familiar with proper refutation and rhetoric, and that pg's How to Disagree was by now widely known. BTW, it's here: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
a. Your argument was vague and lacked proper distinctions. It was so to the point of being annoying and insulting the intelligence of people with even a vague understanding of history. If you want to make a point, at least be clear about it.
b. It was off topic and out of place. There was a very good discussion on how to make a living off of consulting going on and you had to distract from it with your personal pet peeves with Christians. If you want to start a debate, get your own thread.
For a history on the subject, read "Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles", by Jesus Huerta de Soto.
It makes me wonder if you actually believe what you are saying or if you're just saying it to elicit a response. Hopefully it's the second, the first one would be sad.
But you are right, the comment is rather batty and I don't think the fellow meant anything by it.
As one who takes something away from this board every day, I was excited to contribute something from personal experience. Interestingly, this was also the #1 question posed to me over Startup School weekend.
I included these examples (my aunt's front porch, the dinner, and yes, Bible study) to show that business can come from anywhere, anyplace, and at any time, even when you least expect it. As I entered these examples, I wondered what, if any, discussion would ensue. Little did I know...
So today I got 2 big surprises, this thread and a little number deep inside a nested iteration that's been spewing bad data for 2 1/2 years now. What a day.
[Hate to disappoint, but the most interesting thing about the pawn shop project was converting their old data without knowledge of the original author's 25 year old compression algorithm. A subject for another day, I suppose...]
I beg to digress, if you care to discuss it. It is not similar. Geocentrism is a theory of the world and was abandoned in the view of newly discovered undisputable facts. The prohibition on usury is a moral judgement, an axiom of a moral system, not a theory or view of the world, and as such cannot be changed by facts. I thought that difference was obvious. It is furthermore closely related to generosity and the sin of greed. Modern sects have abandoned this prohibition simply for convenience, thus completely changing their moral framework, and they have nothing to do with the original Christians.
The fact is, Christian moral precepts are a lot more complicated and involved than you seem to believe. The Catholic Church (around which the usury debate is usually framed) has always held the doctrine and our understanding of morals a. develops and b. must be applied to the circumstances.
The fact is, 'usury' is still forbidden, but what in fact entails usury has been greatly refined. It was once assumed that the charging of interest granted the loaner a living that did not depend on him making contributions to society. The dynamics of banking and such have since reassessed and investment has since been shown to very valuable to the growth of an economy. IE., it has been demonstrated that those who loan money, do in fact, contribute through the act of loaning money. Witness the importance of VCs to startups, (arguably of far greater malice than pawn shops. ;))
The thing is, the concerns over which interest was considered wrong, have since been shown to be misplaced. Activities which allow one to profit of of others without contributing are still considered wrong, under similar language, but what constitutes 'usury' is no longer clear cut and is open to debate.
I would have liked to know how the OP solves the cognitive dissonance between his beliefs and the accepted practices of today's world. I hoped to get an intelligent answer other than the usual 'everybody does it' or 'I could not get by otherwise' fallacies.
Unfortunately, the only thing I learned is that HN threads are not to be taken off-topic. Curiosity is for the weak.
I'd be happy to fill in any missing pieces and point out some logical flaws in this thread. Offline please.
All you ever had to do was ask.
My email address in is my profile.
Then you learned something that I don't believe is true. HN threads are taken off-topic all the time.
You just took this thread somewhere that most people don't believe belongs on hacker news. That's all.
Politics, religion, sports, and popular culture are areas probably better served elsewhere.
I made the mistake of saying the word "Bible" to illustrate that oppotunities can come from the least expected places. Next time I'll say, "At a group meeting..." Sorry.
I know it perfectly well, and usually I love HN exactly because of it, but right now I'm in too much of a bad mood to appreciate it.
Once again, I am willing to continue this discussion off-line. I think the community has made it clear that's where it belongs. This is my last post in this thread. Since I have no other way of contacting you, your move.
Arguing from obviousness about religious beliefs? Come on, people have fought wars over the iota in homoiousious. Arguing from obviousness in interpreting a passage in the New Testament? Learn about hermeneutics. One text, many interpretations, and as many as there are people willing to approach the text authentically.
And let me give you something only a Christian would say, so you can be educated. Bible study is not an end in itself. It is a means to becoming more like Jesus, becoming closer to Jesus. So I take a dim view of arguments that purport to assume a Christian belief and the status quo, then derive a contradiction. These arguments are about the periphery of Christianity. If you want to create some cognitive dissonance, head for the center.
I read that (crappy) Wikipedia article on usury, including the strands of Christian thought that disagree with the non-interpretation of those New Testament passages in the Wikipedia. For instance, the section on the scholastics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury#Usury_in_scholastic_theol...
So instead of taking the reductionist appeal to obviousness and playing word games with quotations that you interpret privately, maybe you can go through the two millennia of source material on the question and offer the definitive breakdown. Send me a link to your dissertation when you're done.
More to the point, this and many other religious beliefs inhere in systems of thought, not random answers to random questions. You just asked, "When did you stop feeling cognitive dissonance about your beliefs?", and I might rightly be skeptical that you even cared about the answer.
You don't understand a religion until you understand it from the perspective of someone who lives it. You don't understand a religious belief unless you locate it in the network of beliefs, the worldview, that it belongs to. And you don't discredit a religion by raising questions about disputable matters.
http://www.guppylake.com/~nsb/pithy.html
:-) [This is a joke. I have no comment about the issue being discussed.]
Oh wait, you mean most people in the US identify as Christians, and they're the ones having problems? I see.
Exactly. With a strong emphasis on identify, or make that auto-identify. Like Ghandi, I like Christ, but not Christians. Except, maybe, Eastern Orthodox, but that's another topic.
I don't mind burning karma doing this, I've got plenty to spare. This is just wrong.
In other words, it's more about sales skills than technical ability.
That said, DB consultants generally make a bit more because of the fragility and messiness of what they deal with. I've done some Oracle consulting at $100/hr and that, I realize now, was a very low rate.
This question is nearly impossible to answer and a very personal decision. Nobody here can tell you how much you are worth. For example, am I doomed to crap rates just because I live in the Philippines? No (sorry danohuiginn!)
Figure out how much money you want to make and how many hours you want to work. Remember that you cannot get eight billable hours out of an eight hour day.
As a "consultant" you are running a business. Asking other people how much your rates should be is not a business question, that is a programmers question. You are asking like this is some sort of algorithm you can plug into your code. You need to tweak your mindset a bit.
Edit: How to get consulting work.
Build your brand and visibility. Pick a community (get a bonus for picking one frequented by paying clients) and establish yourself as an authority. Create an open source project which you can point to which shows you know what you are doing.
Network! The area in which I am has more work than there are people available yet there is likely no shortage of people who would love to break in. The reason for this paradox is that I only work with people in my network.
All the freelancers I know are overworked. Often any one of them need help and I can't help them because I am overworked as well. Get to know other developers who are freelancing and ask them if they know anyone who needs a hand.
It's all about that recognizable and trusted brand!
This is an extremely important point. When I was freelancing, I was surprised by just how much non-billable overhead time I had (at least 5-10 hours a week when working with 3 clients). To reduce overhead, work with as few clients as possible. But you'll run into dead time that way, since jobs don't start on a dime.
I know a guy who has freelanced for 5 years and kept meticulous records. He knows what he's doing, but says every year he tops out at about 60% of his time being billable. Make sure you factor that into your rate.
It's really easy to take your rate and multiply by 40, thinking that's your weekly salary. This is pretty much never the case.
Also, don't forget taxes.
Also, I will often not bill some hours for clients that have given me a lot of work over the years.
Another big time sink (that I didn't realize) is all the work that's involved with even setting up a contract or freelance relationship. Depending on the client, you can spend weeks waiting / working out details before the project begins. This is why longer projects are more valuable (and can be billed at a lower rate) -- since there's always some fixed overhead per project.
I spent years as a sysop of the CompuServe Computer Consultant's forum. I'm kind of familiar with this stuff. <g>
Another general guideline is to estimate 1,000 hours of billable work (which makes it easy to calculate an hourly rate for some amount of desired annual earnings).
"Also, don't forget taxes."
Definitely don't forget the taxes, especially estimated payments. Consider that 40% of that money, once deposited, isn't yours and is untouchable, and you'll be better off.
You can't bill for doing your office paperwork, promotion, eating lunch and such, but that's not part of an 8 hour "work" day (like your commute isn't part of your work day either).
Not to be obtuse, but if everyone is overworked, why don't they charge a little bit more so that there is less demand and therefore a more reasonable workload?
Is there perhaps a fixed ceiling above which no one will pay? Or do clients get angry if you keep changing your prices to meet market conditions? Or do companies in your line of work only hire consultants for projects in crisis, such that the only work available consists of high work loads over short periods of time?
Perhaps a lot of freelancers have a hard time asking for higher rates. Pricing is a difficult subject.
I used to be consulted out at 2000 Euros per day.
Million Dollar Consulting: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=...
Getting Started In Consulting: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=...
Value Based Fees: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=...
I'd recommend these three books and check out his website @ http://www.summitconsulting.com/
This guy is not a software consultant. So beware, beware, beware this advice, because that little detail matters a lot.
It's easy to charge project based fees when you (a) are an expert negotiator and speaker and (b) your project is not built of either hardware or software. If the deliverable is a paper report, a Powerpoint presentation, or a new org chart, it is relatively easy to work around or gloss over any problems that arise and still deliver on time and make the client happy. You have a ton of flexibility. Unless you're drafting legal documents, editing the English or changing the color of a graphic has no wide-ranging ramifications.
If the deliverable is a working machine, you're up against the laws of nature:
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard Feynman
You'll end up running three weeks late because the client makes a "trivial" reinterpretation of the spec at the last minute, and the old library won't meet the new spec, but the new version of the library will, so you upgrade, but the new version has a different API, and one of those new API calls has a bug...
[UPDATE: This link, recommended elsewhere on the page, has a succinct summary of the argument in favor of time-based fees: http://30sleeps.com/blog/2007/09/27/set-your-hourly-rate/ ]
If you're happy making $x/hour or whatever then by all means continue to do so. If you're looking for more, you may want to start exploring other billing models.
Not disagreeing per se... I'm interested in your reasons.
From my experience, this is not on the high side, though perhaps slightly above average.
Noted.
Good luck!
Rates go up for everything else, why not you too?
I do project management, usability, and generally make sure everything is on track - so it might not be exactly what you're looking for. But for what it's worth I charge $150 an hour, and can be negotiated down to around $100 if it's more than 2-300 hours.
My experience is that you shouldn't sell yourself too cheaply, since your customers then will regard you as being not very good at what you do.
"My experience is that you shouldn't sell yourself too cheaply"
and
"can be negotiated down to around $100"
My experience is that I don't negotiate. About half my prospects offer something lower. I usually say something like, "I don't compromise my rates and I don't compromise my work." Most of them accept. But it's OK, even if they don't. Just never allow yourself to be in the position where you have to negotiate because you need the gig so badly.
Presenting a lower price is not the same as presenting your customary price and then reducing it after a negotiation.
If you can find a few good clients that pay consistently and are really cool to work with, you can make a really good living working about 20 hours/week, especially if you live in a city where the costs aren't outrageous. As said above, you need to talk to a lot of people. As edw519 said above, if you do consulting and talk to enough people, it's surprising how you feel as though you "luck out" and get some good, well paying work.
It's not taboo, it's a great question. Several answers already posted are excellent, but I'll add another. In the market I work in, for independent contractors:
"Oh, my God, they got screwed" => anything less than $40/hr
"I can't [believe?] she had the balls to ask for that rate." => $150/hr or higher
Of course it depends, blah blah blah, but you did say ballpark.
For deciding what you should ask, Jerry Weinberg has a great piece of advice: set your rate so that you're happy either way. That is, not so low that you're unhappy if they say yes, and not so high that you're unhappy if they say no.
Now that I think of it, get Weinberg's Secrets of Consulting and read it. It may save you all kinds of trouble. In case you don't know him, Weinberg was part of the very first generation of programmers, and later became known for his work on human factors on software projects. A lot of his stuff is good, but Secrets of Consulting is a must-read, I think, for any hacker who wants to do consulting work to pay the bills.
Good luck!
Regarding the message in your edit, thanks for your post--this is (mostly) a helpful discussion. Just search for the dollar signs (norcalgrrl had a good response, as did a few others).
And good luck with your freelance career!
In the software world it seems people are scared to talk $. Be upfront about what you charge so you don't waste time talking to those unwilling to pay what you are worth.
You can also find more data at Janet Ruhl's realrates.com. It is a database where people share how much they're getting for what kind of work. The home page is no longer updated but the database is live with people adding info.