HN Explorer

Poll: How much do you average per freelancing gig?

147 points by jrwoodruff ↗ HN
In my personal freelancing experience, I need a certain amount of money before I feel it's worth using my spare time to work for someone else. I'm curious as to what that level is for HNers. How much do you bring in on an average freelance job?

166 comments

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cyphorous
I rarely work on a freelance project :)
[dead] si2
scooby dooby doo
thetrumanshow
My last 3 side-projects (while working fulltime at BigCo): $750, $750, $2700

Over time, I have become less and less interested in these kinds of side-projects as I have become more focused on owning the upside of my own products. But, its occasionally nice to get paid for my late-night coding adventures.

matthodan
Do you have projects that generate cash flow? If so, how did you decide on those projects and how long did it take for you to see a meaningful amount of cash flow?
thetrumanshow
Just a trickle of cashflow, and it took ~2 years of generating enough traffic from various sources (other projects) to drive the trickle that I have now. For a ballpark, if the current growth is sustained, the trickle should be enough to buy a car in just over a year.

The concepts for the things I am building now were distilled from several other failed ventures. The choices were based on the projected market sizes.

zackb
How do you go about doing estimation? When you are asked for a bid and have loose requirements what are some good practices for estimating?
jtregunna
Best way I've found is to start out on hourly gigs, until you have a sense of how long certain tasks take you. With experience, you get better at estimating your time.

EDIT: Oh and when you start out, if you're estimating time, double it.

jarin
And then add half again.
trotsky
that's the secret, 3x.

Also, start out on hourly gigs - and then always stay with hourly gigs (time & materials). If you fixed price work you end up having to piss off clients with anal scope management (or you take a bath).

alexg0
and then switch to next higher time unit (without changing the number)
asmithmd1
This has worked for me. I estimate it will take 8 hours - quote 16 days.
riledhel
I never thought about this before, But surely will keep it on Mind next time i'm quoting a gig.
thetrumanshow
I am so incredibly horrible at estimation that I bid more with emotion.

If I find the project very interesting and I can fall in love with building it, the client is going to get a good deal. Boring or otherwise tedious projects engender some stone-cold, take-it-or-leave-it negotiation. I mean, this is my free time.

Edit: Nevermind that extra bit, however true. :)

mdolon
I wrote a blog post you might find interesting that talks specifically about quoting web design projects: http://devgrow.com/how-to-properly-quote-a-client/

That's how I go about it and have found it to be the best/only way to ensure I don't overwork myself.

muchonada
A great tool that I've come across for helping out with setting your rate is at http://freelanceswitch.com/rates/. It got me thinking of many areas of expenses that I hadn't considered. It is geared more to those of us doing it full-time.
nekoZonbi
What I do for estimations, is to break tasks into small pieces, then estimate each piece, and add the total. As someone said, it is highly advisable to still double the total.

One of my customers, which I greatly admire, is very old guard and don't buy nothing of agile, extreme, scrum, etc. He only accept strict a to b estimates. Working with him, while hard, has made me much better at making estimates.

leon_
Heh, I've also got problems with estimating the end price. Mostly I think: WTF?! I can't charge that much for this simple work. I always forget that the "simple work" is black magic to most of my clients.
saranagati
it amazes me how few people who do contract work create a requirement docs. Before you even give the potential client a quote, create a requirement doc of every little feature that will be included in the project. Then show it to the client to make sure nothing has been missed or out of scope. Once you have this list you can accurately estimate how long each little piece will be to do. Add in the time it takes to create a requirements doc, an additional % to account for how much time will be spent communicating with the client and anything else that might be specific to that project and you've got yourself a quote.

Another benefit of a requirements doc is if the client later says he expects some additional feature, you can refer to the requirement doc and say that it'll cost extra since it's not listed in there and your original quote didn't include it (or let them know that you're going out of scope for free because you want to help them out which will make them love you [only do this if you're ahead of schedule]).

Also back when I was doing freelance stuff I usually wouldn't even take a gig if I didn't think I would make > $5,000 from it.

xinsight
The problem is often that the work is not clearly defined. Sitting down and thinking about the project, what the client asked for vs. what they really need, listing the unknowns, doing some tests to validate an approach... this can take a lot of time.

What I want to start doing with projects that aren't clearly defined, is to simply do an initial contract to nail down some of these details. Build a prototype, do some tests and write a detailed spec - and then the next contract will be building it for real. (Maybe with some inexpensive outsourcing.)

saranagati
so basically what you're saying you want to do is do work for clients who have a high probability of not paying you because they don't even know what they want. This can still be accomplished but it still needs a requirements doc. Let them know that they'll be charged for an initial requirements doc, then you'll create a prototype, then a rewrite of the requirements doc. Also charge these clients a 50% retainer for this part of the project.

Prototypes aren't as useful as you would think. Clients see them and are like "hey that's a nice mock up, now make what I want", then you build the actual application and they say "well where's feature X, Y and Z?!?! when you say it wasn't in the prototype they just say "well I thought it wasn't there because it was just a mock up"

Ideally though, you want to charge them for the requirements doc (and get paid for it) before you start the actual project. You can usually tell the client this and tell them they can use the requirements doc to shop around with other developers so they can get the best deal. Clients are usually happy with this and usually don't bother shopping around.

gcheong
Would be interesting to see what the average time spent is on projects at each income level.
[dead] mooftard
"What is your anual income from freelance work versus your anual income from your day job?" There, fixed it for you. That is the real question and the only one that means anything. We all know about how much time we have in a year and a year of averages flattens the peaks and valleys pretty well. Anything else is meaningless.
eekfuh
It would be even more interesting if we could factor in location as well. I live in Utah and $125 hourly is decent, but in SV it is probably rock bottom.
alalonde
I'm in Utah too -- $125/hour is more than decent considering our cost of living.
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[dead] mooftard
$ per job? That is meaningless. Are you asking yourself, "do freelance jobs exist where I will make at least $5,000 no matter how long the project takes?" If you're asking that I have a bridge... for you to build for me.
Contractor69
The high and low ends vary greatly. I've done little one hour wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am gigs and then I've done projects that run 4-6 months and bring in 5 figures. On average I'd say about $5000. The most I ever brought in on a single project was $24,000. BTW those projects were all done using the .NET Framework. Take THAT, Expensify!
kirubakaran
Just trying to make sense of the data points here... Your username and the description of your one hour gig leads me to believe that your projects need more than just programming skills. Do you work in San Fernando valley?
Contractor69
I work in the Detroit area actually. The handful of one hour contract jobs I've done have been pure maintenance coding (i.e. bug fixes on existing applications, reports modifications, etc.)
kirubakaran
Thanks. Sorry, my whole comment was a juvenile joke implying pr0n industry. It fell flat.
bigohms
Most efforts are at $5-10K for our market segment per project and a yearly of $1500 and up
eekfuh
I rarely do anything below $5k (at $125 per hour with discounts on bigger projects or past clients that treated me well).

Since this all side stuff, after my 9-5 job, I'm very picky on what I take in, since I like to work on products that I have 'real' input in.

elliottcarlson
Sadly this can be a very skewed number as it will differ per project type, length of project and locality. I would be more interested in hearing what people charge on an hourly basis - but alas this same issue would occur there. Without a literal "How much would you charge to do X (and where do you live)?" type question it is hard to come up with a number that could be used for comparison.
derefr
You can use a different unit to remove the cost-of-living variation: "how many months of rent do you charge for an aggregate month of gigs?"
elliottcarlson
Though in heavily dense areas that have different commutable neighborhoods this can still be off. In NYC you have commuters from New Jersey, Connecticut, the various Borroughs and even upstate NY or Pennsylvania. Each of these will have a vast difference in average rents within their community - for example, my rent in Staten Island for a comparable place within any of the other Burroughs will be a lot lower because I am willing to trade in commute time for it, even though my salary will be comparable to other developers within NYC.
fsipie
Two simple iPhone apps at £500 and £900. One freebie one which brings in £15/month.

Need to charge more!

kaisdavis
This is the advice I offer to all of my freelancing friends and repeat to myself every morning: "Whatever I'm charging, I should double it."

There's a limit on that school of thought, but if have the option of 2 freelancing contacts at X, or 1 at 2x, I prefer to focus on one client at a higher price point.

I figured out my starting freelance rate by taking my per-hour salary from my day job and doubling it. Then, whenever I had too many clients at that price level (generally 2+ back-to-back) I increased my rate by 50% to 100%.

This has worked great for me through multiple iterations. As my portfolio, contacts, and experience grows, so does my rate. I'm left earning a good amount for my freelance work, and have the luxury of turning down work that isn't paying enough or is too much of a hassle to coordinate.

Malcx
Can you contact me (email in profile) or add a contact yourself?
keithwarren
I have been on my own for over a decade and tend not to take a job that is less than 6 weeks work. All .NET work for customers at all different market segments and the rate varies from 110-195/hr.
Loic
Working in the chemical engineering area. Hard science + all the cool technologies you can read on HN => Fun + money. Usually a contract starts at $15k (2 weeks) and goes up to 2 months of work on average.

I always advice people to go the hard science way if they like computer science, because there is a really big big lack of people being good at both. I should write about it.

dkersten
If you ever get a chance, please do, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

I've thought about going into a hard science industry but never did anything about it because 1) I'm not really qualified in the science side, my skills/experience/qualifications are in computer science and 2) I don't really know how to get started.

jules
You could get started by watching MIT physics and mathematics opencourseware courses (including video lectures) to see if it suits you.
jergason
There are opportunities to pick it up. I have worked in bioinformatics labs and have learned tons of biology and chemistry just through osmosis. Also, they always need more people that program well.
hariis
How do you go about finding such projects in hard science? Is there a gigs board or is it through networking mainly?
mohsen
that brings up a question for me. when you say $15K/2weeks, is that for a task that can be accomplished by a single person (2x40h), or do you have to break the job up amongst other people?
Loic
Just me, it is usually complex stuff where only one person or two in tandem can do the work. I would be pleased to be able to offload some of the work to other people, but it is hard to find people having the right skills — the niche effect, few skilled people.
mohsen
just a suggestion. maybe you can create a training system, where people can "shadow you", and the possibly take some of the load off of you. of course i understand that the work is complex, so perhaps someone with the necessary academic background, but not fully knowledgeable of the tech side yet?
Vivtek
What kind of skills are you looking for?
antihero
How regular is this? Wouldn't that mean you could earn nearly $400k a year?
werrett
Woah woah woah. Don't forget take into account the overheads in consulting.

Just off the top of my head you'd need to think about winning each contract, paying taxes, holidays, health cover, professional indemnity, sick leave, misc business expendables (like office, phone, ISP), the list goes on.

Don't get me wrong. It is still good money I'm sure.

nolite
I'm pretty niche.. can I write you?
revorad
That sounds interesting. Can I email you?
orenmazor
absolutely. I've done a lot of work with automation of fabrication and testing instruments (fiberoptics) and the money's definitely good.

its also an amazing learning opportunity (and play. but never take close up photos of your phone. you'll become OCD about clean pretty fast)

kragen
I'd also be interested in what you have to write about it.

Off-topic: what books do you recommend on chemical engineering? What's the equivalent of The Art of Electronics for analog electronics, or HDL Chip Design for digital chip design, or Code Complete or Algorithms in C or CLRS or The Pragmatic Programmer or SICP or TAOCP for software?

rockorager
There are very few "sit down and read" type books about chemical engineering. That being said, there are two books that I reference every day: the first physically, the second philosophically.

1) Perry's Handbook for Chemical Engineers (Perry)

2) Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes (Douglas)

Perry's is the end all be all for technical reference.

Conceptual Design is incredibly useful for learning how to quickly and accurately design an entire process. If anything, it'll teach you the best methods to go about "back of the hand" calculations for sanity checks.

kragen
Thank you very much!
geebee
the one thing about hard science - it's a specialty that can distinguish you from general programming, which may increase the rate. however, you don't want to get in the business of competing with graduate students, who are accustomed to doing very difficult work for very little money.

I did a lot of operations-research type programming in grad school, and I thought it would set me apart, but I've found that the jobs that want programming and OR skills don't seem to pay any better than other types of programming. This is jobs, not consulting gigs, though, and I'm only basing this on a few data points.

csomar
Yeah, please do. And if you can, please, I need to know if it's possible to do it remotely (or with a meeting or two at most).

- I mean, I'm not from a developed country. Is that still possible that I can take advantage of mastering both skills? I'm currently a Medicine student with good programming skills. -

rockorager
I'm a chemical engineer myself, and often wondered if there were any others interested in programming as much as I am. I'd be interested to see what sorts of marriages you have made between the two fields. Do you have any links you could post or send me?
neave
I mostly work on a day rate, not a per-project rate. Can you create a poll for average day rates?
patio11
One lesson I learned this year as a newbie consultant: there is a heck of a lot of dynamic range in that top bucket. It's like software: even if everyone you know pays $5 or $10 or $30 for software, don't necessarily let that set your expectations, because software can get arbitrarily expensive.
naner
Like $40 million for a simple paywall.
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mdolon
I found that I had been undercharging for the past few years when quoting projects. While my hourly rate had been fine (around $75 for design, $100 for programming), my estimation of how many hours a project would take was always way off. I guess the assumption I made was "no one would pay a lot of money for a website," and so I typically got tedious lower-end clients that were much more work than they were worth.

The last few projects I've gotten average to about $7k each and are about 1-2 months in duration. The highest I've gotten is $10k for a 2 month design and development gig, working very casually over that time (enough time to work on other projects freely). I'm now learning that people are willing to pay for high quality work and consistent/reliable communication.

[dead] 9ec4c12949a4f3
We really need to dimensionalize this information. For example, what is the hours invested to any one project, and what is the skill level of work involved?
MatthewDP
I usually charge $75-$100 an hour for .NET development (in the midwest).
Sargis
How do you know your skills are good enough to take on a $XXXX project? I've never done freelance work, but I would love to start doing some work after school and earn a few bucks along the way.
patio11
One way: have you ever delivered something which someone would pay $X,000 for? If so, then you are good enough to deliver something someone would pay $X,000 for.

I think many people get hung up on skill though. Clients pay for many, many things. Skill is only one of those things, and it doesn't dominate, either. Clients can also pay for:

  criticality of work
  urgency of work
  guaranteed availability
  hard-to-find expertise
  communication skills
  perceived attentiveness to needs
  lower perceived risk
  corporate politics
  measurable results
  warm fuzzy feeling
Of these, if you could only have one, I'd probably go with the ability to give clients the warm fuzzy feeling. You will never go hungry if clients get the warm fuzzy feeling from working with you.

Hat tip to tptacek, who taught me the importance of some of the above.

juddlyon
This is totally in line with my experience (own a web design/dev shop). We talk about the "warm fuzzy feeling" in terms of making other people look good.

- make your clients look good to their stakeholders

- make someone look good to their manager

- make an exec look good to their board

- make the firm subcontracting to you look good to the end-client

- make your teammates/collaborators look good (and help them save face when they screw up)

mdolon
Also, ask someone else how much they'd pay for your work. I found that since I make websites myself, I tend to value the work a lot less because it seems easier to me. In reality, the work is very valuable to people who are not capable of doing it themselves, so they're usually willing to pay more for it than you are. And as usual patio11 is spot on in regards to those qualities, having strength in those areas can give you a powerful edge in winning over clients.
theturtle32
For me, I know my ability to learn whatever I need to in order to complete the project. Most of the time, a client will approach me and say "Can you do x, y, and z for this project?" While I can do x and y just fine, I know full well that I haven't the slightest idea about z -- but I still say "yes." I then do a little bit of research on the topic and get back to them with an estimate. I then have a strong motivation to learn 'z' to be able to complete the project and get paid, and will also have gained a valuable skill that I'll be able to leverage in the future.
GrooveStomp
One gig so far at about $1500. A nice average, but not indicative of a trend.
pitdesi
I'd be curious to know if there are any design freelancers that do infographics, and what they charge...

We've had trouble finding great infographic designers that don't take a lot of time to manage, and I'm wondering if we should be paying more.

If interested in that or doing UI/UX stuff, check us out http://feefighters.com and drop me a note

EDIT - looks like people are interested! job posting for fulltime UI/UX here : http://feefighters.com/jobs/ui-designer-developer/

and Freelance infographic posting here: http://www.genuinejobs.com/jobs_detail.php?id=5606 (but just drop an email to josh@feefighters.com instead of responding to this one)

mdolon
Will send you an e-mail but wanted to post this here as others might find it useful as well. I charge $75 per hour for UI/UX design work, meaning wireframe mockups, full-fledged Photoshop mockups and XHTML/CSS/JS conversion. It may be low considered to some standards (San Fran) but I'd rather increase my rate slowly while building a bigger clientele base than risk charging too much and not having enough work.

For those curious about the workflow, I use:

* Google Docs to create a spreadsheet with all project research/notes that is shared with client

* MockFlow to handle wireframe mockups, as it also allows me to easily share them with the client AND is cheap (I think $70 per year?)

* Photoshop and Illustrator to create the main mockups for each of the major pages/sections of the site

I also tend to shy away from logo design, as for me it is not worth the time and effort for the pay - instead I suggest to my clients that they use a service like 99Designs or Brandstack.

jrwoodruff
I actually am an information graphics guy - classically trained in the hard-scrabble world of print journalism, but I'm now refining my interaction design skills at an enterprise UX organization. I just sent you an E-mail via Hacker News Users :)
helpmehelpyou
Where/how do you find these freelance gigs?
mdolon
I'd say 85%+ of the better paying gigs I've gotten have been through existing connections and people I've known. For instance, a college friend started a new business and needed a site - he contacted and ended up hiring me. His partner then referred me to his friend, who also hired me for a project. Word of mouth can be pivotal in building a business so my first suggestion would be to explore your own social circle. (give your friends business cards!)
danenania
Same story here. Partner and I did a fairly complex micro-lending platform for a non-profit as our first major gig. Some of the work was pro-bono, some $35/hour range. We did well, gave them what they needed, and now we're booked with clients for the next six months from referrals and others who wanted to work with us based on that site. We've moved comfortably into the $60-80 range with pretty clear indications that we can keep pushing it higher.
aymeric
My blog helped me but mainly connections and returning clients. I do Facebook application development.
beej71
I have a biz partner that finds them because he has the connections. Though we did get one gig because someone found something I'd written on my tech blog.
veyron
Rule of thumb is to estimate hours and a reasonable rate given the scope and time of the arrangement. It's hard to pin down an absolute number, but in terms of rate I dont consider it unless its at least $200/hr
kayoone
Freelancers hired by BigCos (so not working from home) usually get paid by the hour/day and can easily take home 10k+ a month. Most of the time theres lots of travelling involved though.
MichaelL
Some people seem to get it backwards. They think they are their own client. WRONG!!

It does not matter one bit what I or others charge. What matters is WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CLIENT?

If you know that, you know what VALUE you bring to them and you can charge whatever you want to solve a real problem.

Otherwise you are trading time for money. AKA - Job.

Does Rolls Royce consult Honda as to what to charge for their products? No. Two different markets with two different clients and two very different ways of solving a clients/customer's problems.

frankwiles
Couldn't agree more on value vs time. It doesn't matter at all how long I slave over the hot laptop, it's the value I bring to the client! One hour of optimization that saves $5000 a year in server costs is a steal at $2000/hr over 2-3 years.
nekoZonbi
I work 100% remotely, from not a first world country, and my hourly rate has been escalating with each project. Currently at around 40$/hour. But instead of cashing in, I am rather investing time into improving more, and preparing some interesting personal projects that define myself. I love great challenges, and want to eventually get into something really interesting. Or maybe I will go by myself, and launch a startup that I has been thinking about for some time.