Ask HN: Should I focus on iOS or Rails as Freelance?

You will get more money for iOS dev work than Rails work and it sounds like that's where your experience is. Also 50/hr is way too low for freelance iOS development and on the lower side for salaried position as well. That's only like 76k gross at 80pct billable and I'd never do the math at more than 75pct to be safe. Shoot for at least 150/hr. Even if you are only billing half the time you are still going to be OK. Also iOS development is more fun ;-)

Edit: Even the good people I've worked with outside the US charge $75 US/hr for iOS development work.

Hi Andy

Is 50/hr that low? I know it isn't the US rate, but getting even 30 USD/hr here is hard (that's why I'm trying to focus more internationally and thus the need to do portfolio work as much of my apps are in the local app store).

It's low for the US market but I was being foolish and did not realize you were not US based. I don't think you will have any problems demanding your current 50 or even 75 or 80 an hour if you focus on the US market provided you find high quality clients and build good relationships with them. If you do this those clients will likely come back to you again and again.

$50/hr is rather low (especially on corp-to-corp (C2C) or 1099 but that largely depends on the market, duration of the contract, whether you can claim it in your portfolio, and so on.

Keep in mind that people will naturally appraise your abilities on your perceived value. If you are coming in 50% lower than the competition, they instantly think that you are worth at least 50% less.

Something that seems to work fairly well for me is I have a base rate of $85 (for rails or UX dev) and then offer discounts depending on the duration (in months):

2 - 3: $80

3 - 9: $75

9 - 12: $70

This tells them that I'm "worth" $85/hr but because they are saving me money by reducing downtime, I'm passing that savings on to them. They feel like they are getting a good deal and I get longer contracts.

I've been looking into doing freelance/contract work, too. However, I am in the US. I know there are many different tips and tricks to charging what you want, but can anyone with iOS freelance experience share their experience with pricing methods?

Throwing the question back at you: If you're more worried about clients which do you think has the higher demand and the best long term potential? Which is going to give the best client base?

Thanks for the reply!

I guess that is actually what I'm asking. At HN, seems there are more people requiring Rails/web devs, but outside, seems iOS devs are more in demand.

Right now and in all honesty, my main concern is supporting my family, I have a few months salary I can burn through while developing the portfolio, but I'm afraid of betting on the wrong horse so to say.

Well I think if you are just looking for a quick buck reverse engineer what Objective-C and Ruby programmers are getting paid by looking at both the volume of want ads and which is getting the higher rate. Just keep in mind that languages can go out of style faster than you think.

Another way to look at is if you want to bet on apps vs. the web in terms of growth over the long term. And frankly I don't think anyone has a real answer for that yet, in fact over the long haul it might even be a false divide.

Lastly for my money I think the best programmers are always ones who are good at multiple languages. So for example you might build a native app with Objective-C (maybe Java for Android) and then create a backend using Ruby or something on a server. I'd also point out to you that other skills like a knowledge of a specific industry and just the ability to communicate can make an average programmer very desirable as an employee or freelancer.

I'm actually quite proficient in various languages (C++, C#, Haskell, Objective-C, Ruby) and have done work on various frameworks (ASP.net, ASP MVC, Rails, yesod, CastleMVC, QT, wxWdigets). Right now my main problem is getting clients as most of my work is 'hidden' by contracts and NDAs.

btw, you last name Pinto, latin/portuguese by chance?

$50/hr seems low for development work? That's what I would charge for standard website development (HTML/CSS/basic JS)

Well, if you ever need a dev for $50/hr you know where to find one ;)

Seriously though, while not from India or Pakistan, I still live in a low-cost country (Portugal) compared to most of the USA or UK. $50/hr affords me a good quality of life. The market may allow me to charge more, but at the moment, I can't even find many clients at this rate (thus, focusing right now on building a public portfolio, I have other projects I have worked on that are very well rated on the Appstore, but can't really use them as showcase due to NDAs I've signed).

Ah yes, I was wondering if you were outside the States, but decided to be ethnocentric and assume you were in the U.S. because of your excellent English.

Thanks! I lived in the UK for a few years and learned most of my english from cartoons ;)

> at the moment, I can't even find many clients at this rate

All the reason to charge more. If you have lots downtime between clients then you should make enough during your uptime to compensate for that. There are other benefits to outsourcing besides cheap labor and clients should pay a premium for those luxuries.

iOS development. No brainer. Everything is moving to mobile and good iOS devs are in demand now. Plus, I hate rails.

Actually, there's a growing tendency towards mobile websites (as opposed to native apps). Sure there a certain things that mobile websites can't do, but the majority of the apps out there don't use those things.

In the past 6 months, I have seen a massive increase in the amount of sites that are mobile-ready. It is interesting to see the standards that have developed for most of the sites. I still find that most lack creativity, but that may just be an ignorant view of the cover of the book.