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Re: How Much To Charge for Drag & Drop?
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:59 pm
by Jenk
Who said anything about minimum wage? You're overcharging just because it's got some javascript, even if it only takes <1hour to make. You're a developer, your time is your service.
Asking/Demanding is not the equivalent to being offered. If a company offers a shedload of money for a logo, that's their perogative, however I'm not about to ask for a shedload of money just because they are "big" over someone who is "small" and both tasks will take the same amount of my time. Some call it shrewd, I call it profiteering.
Re: How Much To Charge for Drag & Drop?
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:46 am
by onion2k
Jenk wrote:Some call it shrewd, I call it profiteering.
The idea of running a business is to make a profit. If you're charging less than your customers are willing to pay you're just giving money away and potentially risking the future of your business - if you get a few clients who don't pay what you invoice (if they have cashflow issues, or they just don't pay because they're bastards), and you've not built the cost of that into the profit from other jobs you'll end up going under. Getting high profit work when you can is as much about protecting your business as it is about making loads of money.
Re: How Much To Charge for Drag & Drop?
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:38 pm
by califdon
Jenk, I respect you for your desire not to exploit your customers. That's commendable and I wish that more people and more companies had that ethic. But if you are going to engage in the commercial world as an independent contractor, you would be well advised to think in terms of what the value of your efforts are
to your clients.
Jenk wrote:You're a developer, your time is your service.
Only if you think of yourself as a commodity. I would disagree. As a developer, my
output is what I am selling, not my time. And the quality of my output depends on my training and experience and cleverness in meeting the needs of my clients. How many hours it takes me to do the job is not part of the equation. If I were painting their house, then my time would be a consideration, but (IMHO) not if I am delivering a web or information solution to them.
At least that's the way I look at it.
Re: How Much To Charge for Drag & Drop?
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:59 pm
by Eran
califdon wrote:As a developer, my output is what I am selling, not my time.
I found this to be very insightful and I agree completely. In most cases I have to explain to my clients that we shouldn't talk about my hours but rather my output. My opinion that it shouldn't matter to them as long as the end result is the same - if I have a high output in limited time, it's only to my advantage.
Re: How Much To Charge for Drag & Drop?
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:21 pm
by Jenk
califdon wrote:Jenk, I respect you for your desire not to exploit your customers. That's commendable and I wish that more people and more companies had that ethic. But if you are going to engage in the commercial world as an independent contractor, you would be well advised to think in terms of what the value of your efforts are
to your clients.
Jenk wrote:You're a developer, your time is your service.
Only if you think of yourself as a commodity. I would disagree. As a developer, my
output is what I am selling, not my time. And the quality of my output depends on my training and experience and cleverness in meeting the needs of my clients. How many hours it takes me to do the job is not part of the equation. If I were painting their house, then my time would be a consideration, but (IMHO) not if I am delivering a web or information solution to them.
At least that's the way I look at it.
That is exactly how I look at it, but the reason I bring time into it, is that my hourly rate already accounts for my abilities, my past 'training', my 'expertise' etc.
i.e. my whole point is soley on the price hiking just becuase it is "ajax" even if it takes less than an hour. The other reason I do look at my self as a commodity, is because I employ Scrum/Agile. After identifying, prioritising and estimating a user's stories, I will tell them how much I will have done by the end of the next sprint. The price of a sprint never changes, because it is a fixed time-box. Stories are valued on how long it will take me to complete, and I then choose enough stories to fill a sprint.