Ask HN: How much to charge for first freelance consultancy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much to charge for first freelance consultancy?

I'm a PhD student studying cyber-security (aviation security in particular) and was recently approached by an avionics company who wants to hire me for advice based on my academic research. The most money I've ever earned before this is something like $25/hr in an internship. They're asking me to quote them my monthly rates and I'm worried about either under-quoting and looking unprofessional or over-charging and looking greedy. The company is European if that matters at all.

How much do you all feel would be appropriate / non-presumptive to ask for as a student with high subject-expertise and low consultancy experience? Would something like $50/hr be crazy high or crazy low?

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>The most money I've ever earned

REDACTED.

>Would something like $50/hr be crazy high or crazy low?

Charge at least $300/hour. I'd say $500/hour. In France, it's more "jour.homme (JH)" (man.day). Compute your rate.

Set the precedent of someone actually looking at your rate and say "That's acceptable". You don't have much experience so it'll probably take you slightly more than the time you "bill" to actually do the job, but don't let that "delta" get big. Going above and beyond didn't hurt us.

You get more efficient with experience, and streamline your process to getting things done, document templates, your workflow, etc...

Do not think of it as "freelance consultancy", or that you're a student. You have expertise and you're solving a problem. What would happen if someone went on without that expertise? Would it mean a military plane being neutralized?

Here's something you may find useful for later, if you want to do consulting through a consultancy: https://twitter.com/jugurthahadjar/status/131066829330549965...

1) Please don’t quote an hourly rate. Quote by week or at least by day at set expectations (“I’m available between 9-17”).

2) Unless they’re hiring you as an employee, they’ll expect to deal with you via a company. Get in touch with an accountant ASAP and look into liability insurances.

Good advice, and the 'what type of arrangement do they want' bit is critical here.

If they want to hire you full time your guide is regular salaries for cyber security professionals in their/your country (whichever's higher, if they're different), plus a bit if your knowledge is super-specialised. If they want to hire you for a couple of months, or a few days a week, the rule of thumb is to calculate that on a pro-rata basis and at least double it. (Freelancers typically only get to bill for half the hours they actually work, and have to cover some of their own expenses)

Either way, an avionics company has deep pockets and hires expensive professionals for stuff that matters to it, and it's a lot easier to agree to drop rates (possibly in return for something like a longer contract or minimum number of days per month) than it is to negotiate them up.

Agree on all terms. 2x your monthly salary is a good rule of thumb (EXCULDING VAT, I cannot stress this enough).

Also, don’t forget to factor payroll taxes which are usually “invisible” to you as an employee and can be substantial. In Sweden, to get a salary €3000 pretax costs the company €3000 * 1,3132.

Another way to approach this is to find the salary for a similar position then either x1.5 or x2.0 it. When working for yourself you have to incorporate expenses (rent, insurance, hardware, services, accountancy etc.). From there work backwards to an hourly rate. One metric is Salary/2000 = Hourly Rate. You can use this to create a daily or weekly rate.

You may need to talk to an accountant. You may need to charge VAT and will almost certainly need to set up as at least a sole trader.

Look around for rates.

If it's a common role chances are recruiters are looking for people and they will typically quote the budget for it, if so use that. If the rate isn't openly advertised, get in touch with the recruiter and pretend to apply for the position, whatever rate they suggest, add 10-20% (that's their markup) and use that for your rate.

If it's a more specialized position, search for more common roles which require your skills and look at those rates, and potentially go back to the above approach to figure out the rate.

In Netherlands €70-€90/hr seems to be the general coding rate. Ask more than €50, French lifestyle and taxes are expensive as here. They want expert? Pay.

50USD/h would not be crazy high, a little on the low side based on what I’ve seen.

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