How much do you change for what?

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Jonah Bron
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How much do you change for what?

Post by Jonah Bron »

Hello, world!

I'm curious, what do you charge for doing different things? How would you compare that against your skill level? How much for system administration? Programming? DB administration? Meetings? Years of experience? How do you bill, mostly hourly or mostly by bid? How does that pertain to the kind of projects you usually do? I'm not looking for an end-all, just the angles you all take and have taken.
matthijs
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Re: How much do you change for what?

Post by matthijs »

The way I charge for stuff has changed over the years. Mostly it's project by project basis. So someone asks if I can do something and I'll give an offer for a certain price (or price range). Could be a complete project costing a few thousand, could be a simple form costing $100.

I used to give the amount of hours involved, but I stopped doing that. People don't care about the time involved, it doesn't mean much to them and if it means something it is often misinterpreted in many ways.

Sometimes/for some clients there's more continuing "support" kind of work, and then I'll give an hourly rate and for each bit of work I'll tell them how much time it takes.

I don't quote differently for different kinds of work in the sense of programming is X and desiging is Y. I just quote what I think is right in a specific situation. Only for myself I will take the minimal hourly rate I need/want as a starting point. It wouldn't make sense to bill too little. Sometimes I might give a price on the lower end: for example if I really want that job, there's a lot of competition and/or it's a non-profit good cause. Sometimes I might give a much higher price. Just as I have lost some jobs because I was more expensive then others, I have also lost jobs because I was too cheap (!) so I'm trying to prevent both those situations.

So in the end it's not a very precise process, there's some subjective judgement involved. I just try to price things so that everybody wins. So I can make a decent living and clients get good results/great value.

And as the years go by I slowly increase the value I can provide, so the prices for what I offer increase as well.
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Benjamin
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Re: How much do you change for what?

Post by Benjamin »

I charge the same for everything billed hourly except emergency tasks. Often times I have multiple clients who all want everything done YESTERDAY. They are setup with a ticket system. Anything that is an emergency or they want done within 24 hours is billed at around a 40% premium. They flag those tickets as critical. All other tickets I aim to complete within 7 days and are billed at the regular price.
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social_experiment
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Re: How much do you change for what?

Post by social_experiment »

I calculate the amount of time required to complete the project and multiple the hours i get with my hourly rate; The issue i have seen with billing per hour is that the clients' understanding of time and developing is different from mine; what takes me an hour or two to create and test is something they think can be done "easily and quickly".
Jonah Bron wrote:I'm curious, what do you charge for doing different things? How would you compare that against your skill level? How much for system administration? Programming? DB administration? Meetings? Years of experience?
Up to know i have calculated everything i do according to the same rate which i increase once i have something additional i can offer the client; I'm not sure how tough competition are in different parts of the world but in south africa the amount of people that offer web-related services are plentiful so when quoting i give an amount i think would be in the mid ranges; to show my rates are affordable and to indicate i am not a rookie with no experience
Jonah Bron wrote:How does that pertain to the kind of projects you usually do?
From what i have seen it will depend on the client rather than the project; charging per hour in my opinion makes them anxious to get things done because the more time it takes the bigger the bill. If you quote a total amount then it gives them the option to slack off and let the whole process drag out because the amount is fixed (unless the contract states something different).
“Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job.” - Mosher’s Law of Software Engineering
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