Ask HN: Freelancers, what's your hourly rate?
I am trying to figure out if I should charge more. I currently code C++ for the equivalent of $100 per hour. So please post what you do and how much you charge.
Android & basic (jQuery+MEAN) web dev, 8 years of experience.
Or more specifically, I would recommend charging weekly or monthly (up front, ideally), depending on the nature of the project. And each larger chunk of time they reserve, the greater the discount. So your monthly rate would be cheaper than your weekly rate, and both should be much cheaper than your hourly rate.
But, even if you continue charging hourly, you should charge progressively more until you meet sufficient market resistance. You determine your rate.
Personally, I only do small side projects (different language/platform) and I don't offer less than week billable periods, and my rate for that equates to $200/hour.
Slightly longer answer: I've done this for a while (a decade plus) and suffered through my own periods of undercharging and making just about every mistake in the book, business wise. However, I always did decent work and was reliable. That's what matters most. Over time, I corrected my under billing using the technique described in my answer above.
I do React/Node primarily (Typescript on both front/back end). I used to build out websites, but these days it's a ripoff to charge anyone a meaningful rate for a website unless you're doing something corporate or something that needs lots of functionality. Cookie-cutter sites just aren't worth my time / rates anymore, especially since a lot of my clients are friends and I don't want to charge them my full rate.
Edited to add I'm not the OP
Dice.com has put probably 10+ jobs in front of me in under a week.
I don't generally get too much resistance to this even with direct consumers. They do get sticker shock though. Easier to sell a series of small projects than to hit someone with a total network rebuild.
I was getting $150/hour. I charged by the hour.
I live in Nashua, NH. I think location really effects what you can charge.
Over the 4+ years I worked as contractor, among things I worked on:
- Radar displays/GUI (solo, in person, job shop).
- Laser scanning (solo).
- Medical scanning/GUI - the computer vision part (solo)
- Computer vision for protecting operators (solo, job shop).
To get work, I talked to former employers (direct) and sometimes the indirect kind (through a job shop).
Higher rates are almost mandatory to avoid cheap clients looking for the next big discount and questioning every penny on the invoice.