
Ask HN: How to price yourself? - gdiocarez
Philippines
Background:
I quit college because it was expensive for me. I entered the company with 1 year experience basic programming(C, C#, etc.). They have given me a book ruby &quot;Programming Ruby&quot; and started to work there as a web developer&#x2F;tech support&#x2F;call center for 3 years. I was just earning $550&#x2F;month and as the company and people grow it goes down to $250 due to failed pricing and small clients.<p>I was still staying there due to clients that used the product. Also the relationship with clients that I have build because we worked on it side by side.<p>Current Situation:
I have exposed my resume online. I wanted to do remote or relocation overseas.<p>I&#x27;d like to ask what is there regular per hour rate of ruby on rails programmer. And how skill is based on the pricing. I was also hoping if $15-$20&#x2F; hour.
======
jMyles
This is one of the most important questions in all the open source world, and
yet, instead of one of the big-name writers of the hacker world bringing it to
the floor, it comes in the form of a question from someone hoping to earn
$15-$20 an hour. It makes me sad.

gdiocarez: First and foremost, thank you for breaking the silence on this.

As for an answer: So, the world is weird. I generally bill $185 an hour as a
spot rate. I have fairly little problem finding steady work at $100 or so on a
steady basis. I tell you this because I think it's fairly typical for someone
living in a major city in the US.

My hope, and I hope everyone's hope, is that the world will generally equalize
around this range, or even higher. I have observed again and again that, each
time I or a colleague makes a contribution of value, we create a dozen or so
opportunities for like contributions.

Unlike the fossil fuel economy that characterized the industrial era, I
surmise that the information age is somewhat sustainable as an exponential
curve of economic possibility. This is a radical viewpoint I'll warn; many of
my (otherwise seemingly reasonable) friends fear that "the music will stop"
unexpectedly and that today will be one of "the good old days."

The truth is: nobody that I know knows the answer to your question. Price
yourself aggressively and work hard. I can tongue-in-cheekly advise you to try
to be lucky. So far, being born in an economic powerhouse (and in an economic,
racial, and social position of privilege) has worked for me.

~~~
jotm
It is not going to equalize around $100. It's going to be lower than that as
more and more specialists from around the world enter the field. Indeed, these
are the good old days, just like it was for many explorers and entrepreneurs
in the past.

The software world is also still (and always will be) dependent on the "real
world", where fossil fuel is still key and will be for a long, long time.

I have to say that you live in a bubble slightly above ~95% of the world, you
are indeed very lucky - hopefully for the rest of your life.

~~~
reedlaw
My big question is how can software--particularly free software--create jobs?
Take operating systems. With free alternatives the trend is towards
commoditization and declining prices. Same goes for almost any category of
desktop software. The only potentially increasing trend is in service,
customization, etc.--all geared towards business productivity. Increased
productivity may or may not result in net employment gain. In fact, for every
programming job there may be manual jobs becoming obsolete. So what can
sustain high hourly rates and create new jobs? One part of the answer must be
increased specialization, but not everyone can become a specialist.

~~~
BraveNewCurency
> how can software--particularly free software--create jobs?

Ok, let's take Linux as a specific example. Take a gander at this:
[http://lwn.net/Articles/547073/](http://lwn.net/Articles/547073/)

So major companies (Oracle, Red Hat, Google, IBM, Intel, Samsung, Fujitsu,
Texas Instruments, etc) are contributing to Linux. That creates jobs for all
the kernel hackers who probably started before kernel knowledge was a hot
commodity.

But that effect is minor compared to what people are building WITH Linux: \-
Red Hat (a 1B company!) wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Linux. They
don't "sell Linux", they sell services around Linux. \- IBM invested a billion
dollars in Linux, and it paid off. They recently decided to invest another
billion. Their support for Linux sells Mainframes and their expertise sells
services. \- Google wouldn't be able to give away their search engine (over 10
million servers) if they had to pay Microsoft for every server. \- Companies
like TI and Intel can add Linux support for their chips (a tiny expense
compared to creating a new CPU), which will enable new devices to be created
easily. Some of those new devices (TiVo, Android, Tomato WRT, RPi) will be
successful and cause their companies to hire more people.

Giving away software doesn't compete with programmers -- it only competes with
companies that sell software. Only a tiny fraction (maybe 5%?) of programmers
work for companies that sell software directly. The vast majority of
programmers write internal line-of-business software, or sell their software
indirectly (SaaS).

So any Open Source software (Drupal, Apache, etc) is far more likely to help
lots of companies save money (therefore have money left over to create jobs).

> In fact, for every programming job there may be manual jobs becoming
> obsolete.

That will make programming jobs be more "in demand" compared to regular jobs,
therefore command higher salaries.

> So what can sustain high hourly rates and create new jobs?

You are thinking about it from the wrong end. The question is "can a bit of
software be worth millions/billions to a company?" The answer is clearly
"yes", since we've seen tiny teams create billions in value over and over.

Search around for the writings of patio11 on HN. He will open your eyes.
People charging $200/hr are playing a different ball game than people charging
$20/hr. They are not 10x better, just better at demonstrating the value of
their software to the client.

> not everyone can become a specialist.

Just the opposite. There are so many new technologies and branches of science
coming out that _everyone_ will be a specialist in the future. In fact,
programmers are _already_ highly specialized. No matter what technology you
pick (COBOL, Java, .NET, Linux, Microsoft, nodejs, Ruby, Python), you will
find that some subset of programmers will refuse to work on it because they
refuse to learn it.

~~~
reedlaw
Did you see the Economist article on the front page today?[1] It asserts that
technology fails to boost wages and that over-education is a problem because
of a failure to create enough suitable jobs. I don't know if that's all true,
but surely there must be a point when enough software exists that it becomes
difficult to find jobs unless you are above average or highly specialized. Or
in other words, workers fail to adapt to the increased rate of change.

Linux is certainly the shining example of free software. But how many other
projects have the same potential to create jobs? Even with Linux, it's not
enough to have an average understanding. Large companies may have a few
positions for mediocre sysadmins, but competition will squeeze them out.

Probably the answer is not in software itself, but in the creation of small
businesses that rely on free software. Sites like eBay and Alibaba have
enabled countless people to work from home selling things around the globe.
There are also countless data entry and Mechanical Turk-style jobs. And of
course electronics manufactuing. So the trend is that even at the bottom
technology becomes a requirement. I guess the good news is that with all the
increased productivity the standard of living rises and people will have more
time to learn new technologies.

1\. [http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21621237-digita...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21621237-digital-revolution-has-yet-fulfil-its-promise-higher-
productivity-and-better)

~~~
e12e
It's an odd perspective. We produce more value for less work, and yet we can't
work (proportionately) less and still enjoy the same value. Sounds like a
problem of how the value created is distributed, not a problem with not
creating enough value?

~~~
prirun
That's because world governments and central banks devalue currencies. Instead
of US getting to work less hours because of increased productivity, banks and
governments get the benefits of increased productivity.

Oh sure, computers and televisions are better and cheaper than ever, but you
can't support a family of 4 if the dad is a grocery store bag-boy and the mom
babysits, which is what my family was able to do 50 years ago, with a house
(mortgage), car, motorcycle, and a boat. I doubt if a bag boy today can even
afford gas, car insurance, rent, and food without struggling.

~~~
reedlaw
I think inflation has more of an effect on savings than earnings, but what you
said about supporting a family 50 years ago rings true. I don't think today's
salaries go as far as they did in the past few decades.

------
hippich
Simple approach which while took some time, did work great for me in long
term:

\- register on odesk.com and elance.com (same owner, but slightly different
projects there)

\- start from very low hourly rate to build history and feedbacks. Make sure
that every client is super happy and leave only 5 stars. Try to focus on small
projects in the beginning (you don't want to get stuck on large project with
low hourly rate, and bumping hourly rate in the middle project both unfair and
hard to do)

\- As you get projects closed (also reason to start with small project - to
close these quickly) follow with client to make sure he leave nice review. In
the very beginning you don't want really to focus on relationship, since these
clients unlikely be able to pay higher rate in future, but you have to get to
get project to complete client satisfaction.

\- Bump hourly rate few dollars every week/months/x projects/x dollars billed.
You need to find perfect formula here for yourself. Good signal to bump rate -
when you get offers to work on project and you don't feel like you will be
able to do it 'cos of a time constraints.

\- If project does not satisfy your curiosity or feels like a BS project (this
all will be based on what you personally like and do not like to do) - never
decline projects, but instead make a "fuck you bid", where you multiply your
"normal" bid by x2 / x5 / x10 (again, you will need to find perfect formula
here). Idea is that you never say "no", but instead make client say "no" or
get paid a lot for doing something you do not want. This also makes you look
more expensive and your work more precious.

\- Don't be afraid to bump rate. It is a bit contradictory, but in my practice
very often well paid work came with very reasonable clients, and work where
project was on very tight budget came with manager-jerk. Somehow when you
charge a lot, clients respect you more.

\- Do all of this until you reach point where total revenue will start
dropping off or you find yourself without necessary projects. It is very
important to keep in mind that 100% "employment" should not be main driver
behind hourly rate pricing. You need to find optimal balance of number of
hours you need to spent on projects vs. your hobby project or self-education.
It is MUCH better spend 20 hours a week at $50/hr vs. 40 hours a week at
$25/hr.

Hope this helps :)

~~~
quaffapint
I often wondered how you even get started at places like elance.

Job postings go up and within a day like 20+ proposals are already there with
most from 4.9+ ratings. Why would anyone ever pick someone new when they have
so many choices of already highly rated people? I don't know what they are
charging, but I have to imagine with so many, that they all can't be very
high.

~~~
dcarmo
I have the same feeling. Even if I apply with a low rate, there's always 20+
in front of me. Clients don't even have time to answer everyone (my guess).

~~~
marktangotango
My experience hiring for jobs on those site is most of those responses or
bidders clearly have not read the requiements. You can distinguish yourself by
giving clear evidence in your bid you understand the requirements, and
importantly, note areas where clarification is needed. Also, a lot of bidders
respond with, why not use framework or service X? Don't do that.

------
patio11
$100 an hour is a rough journeyman rate in a lot of US metro areas. This
implies that you're able to take a description of what software should do,
implement it in code, have that code actually work at accomplishing the
objective, and deliver it in a fashion instantly consumable to your clients.
Also, it is a plus if you don't require handholding to do this.

Self-assess honestly on whether you're there yet. If you are, your new rate is
$100 an hour, and you should spend the next several weeks pitching clients on
why they should have you build a system for them. Where to get seed clients?
I'd start by working your pre-existing clients, either for direct work (if
allowed under your contract with the ex-employer and local norms) or for
introductions to similarly-situated firms, _if_ they were good clients. If
not, skip it, find good clients.

Relocation is not necessary and, short term, will neither sell engagements nor
immediately improve your situation.

~~~
pan69
What you say is true but many clients will prefer to pay $100 ph for a local
guy they can meet face to face rather than outsourcing overseas. I don't mean
to devalue the abilities of OP but one of his strengths is his economic
favour, i.e. if OP's skill set is equal to a US metro area journeyman then
price is definitely a selling point taking into account without it having a
major impact on OP.

~~~
pjmorris
OP doesn't need all the clients, just enough to keep him busy. Let's say
that's five clients. Perhaps there are five or more clients in the world who'd
be willing to pay the $100 rate to work remotely with someone. Why should he
cut his price without finding out?

~~~
pan69
Oh. That's certainly true and OP should definitely try. However, all I'm
trying to say is that clients will have expectations regarding price/cost
working with someone who's located in the Philippines. Again, it's not my
intention to devalue OP's skills and/or experience. What I'm trying to say is
that the hourly rate doesn't have much to do with skills or experience but
with the economy of the place you're located. I.e. why does a developer
located in New York City charge more than a developer located in the
Philippines? Both can be just as good at their job, it's just that "their"
costs are different because their local economy is different. Therefore a
client located in NYC who approaches a developer in the Philippines will have
expectations regarding an hourly rate of that developer. I.e. why would I as a
client want to work with someone far far away while I can work with someone
face to face for the same cost? The primary reason a client located in NYC who
wants to work with someone located in the Philippines will be cost and it's
the reduction in cost that this developer uses as advantage over developers
located in NYC.

I believe StackOverflow did a similar thing when they hired developers all
over the world. The salaries of the developers were based on the local
economy. Not on NYC or SF economies.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I would be very surprised to find a (small) company usin local economy rates.
I would assume the fairly massive disparity in wages for a person doing the
same job is going to cause a lot of resentment.

~~~
pan69
I think it's more likely the other way around. E.g. you have a team with one
developer located in NYC making $100 USD ph and a developer in rural Romania
making $100 USD ph. Both of equal skills. The NYC developer makes a good wage,
enough to pay off his 30 year mortgage and the developer in Romania will be
richer than the president of his country after a year of salary. I think that
will cause more resentment amongst your development team.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Bt he won't be richer - two flights to the US and a hotel stay for his family
will hurt as much as his US compatriot.

Yes he will spend far less on basic living - but paying for his sons medical
treatment will be far more worrying (more expensive in US but also more likely
to work)

There is a reason Mexicans cross a border instead of remote cardless working.

------
julienmarie
Hi. I'm french but I live in the Philippines, and I worked with many rails
programmers here. As employees, Rails programmers go from PHP 50 to 150k a
month usually ( in USD, it's USD 1200 to USD 3800 - And yes the Philippines
Peso symbol is PHP ;) ). For remote programming, $15-$20 per hour is really a
floor rate. Specialize yourself and become really good. Contribute to
projects. Have personal project. Have a good portfolio, answer questions on
StackOverflow, have a nice github. Deliver on time. Communicate clearly with
your clients. More importantly, learn how to define clearly the scope of your
missions, learn how to say no, how to explain why some features might take
more time, etc... . Your skills are important, but to make your clients
satisfied, what matters is communication and specialization. Your specialty is
the value you can add to a business, and your difference vs the competition.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thanks for the advise. I'll build my profile to those sites you recommended.
My communication skill are up most important at this time to clarify ideas to
clients.

------
morgante
First off, I think you should probably ignore a _lot_ of the advice in this
thread. They're tossing US rates at you which are basically irrelevant.

There's simply no way anyone will pay $100/hr to someone in the Philippines.

That being said, your goal of $15-20/hr is completely doable from the start.
Just go on odesk.com or elance.com and start bidding on projects. Start at
$15/hr and then gradually increase your rate as you develop a great
reputation.

If you'd like to increase your rate substantially (never to US levels, but
maybe to $50-60/hr), make 3 investments:

1) Take English classes. Communication skills are absolutely essential for
freelance/remote work, and I'd much rather pay $20-30/hr more to someone whose
sentences parse readily for me.

2) Learn other languages and some CS fundamentals. Someone who basically just
learned Ruby out of 1 book and worked at a mediocre company is never going to
be considered at the top of the heap, so do what you can to move up the value
chain.

3) Start to build a technical brand/portfolio. If you contribute to some open
source projects, that's where you can really start to see higher rates (if you
wrote/contributed to an open source project I'm using, I'd happily pay you
$150/hr to make some changes).

~~~
jevin
I've been freelancing on the web for a few years now and I agree about the
$100/hr rate being ridiculous, at least for freelancing on the Internet.

Keep these 2 things in mind:

1) Not all clients are from the US on freelancing websites!

2) Clients are on there because they want a cheaper rate!

Now I'm not telling anyone to work for cheap. $50-60/hr is perfectly
achievable. Just remember to start low and buildup on sites like oDesk/Elance.

Another route you might try is
[http://www.toptal.com/](http://www.toptal.com/). They only hire the very best
developers, and their interviews/tests reflect that. It's worth nothing that
even they will advise you that $100/hr is a rather expensive rate for someone
outside the US.

------
marketingadvice
Rails especially is being overrun by bootcamp graduates.

I would say though that $15 - 20/hour is about half of what you could charge
depending on what you have to show off (your portfolio of projects). If the
portfolio is bare or small with nothing very impressive, then $20 - 25/hour is
where you will be at until you have something to show.

I recommend finding a site that you use often that you think is
cool/awesome/great, define a MVP (minimum viable product) version of the site
and re-build it using Rails. Make sure the front end and backend are as solid
as you can make it but also don't spend more than a few weeks on it.

This is now a project you have to show off to potential employers, freelance
clients, etc to display that you know what your doing and really show the
quality they will get.

Once you have 3 or 4 of these projects under your belt I think you can charge
+30/hour at least.

If you can't think of anything to do as projects, take the top websites on the
internet and re-build them with a simplified feature set: > YouTube (shows you
can work with video upload/storage/encoding even if its all through gems) >
Facebook (shows you can handle authentication and user relationships as well
as many different models and controllers) > Reddit (shows you can build sites
that can handle lots of link organization)

As a fourth I would choose one of these: KickStarter, SoundCloud or some type
of mini game.

With these make sure to go the extra step of using ElasticSearch or Solr for
auto-completion in search as well as indexing. Basically take your simple
feature set and go the extra mile to make them really good.

Feel free to send me a message if you want to discuss anything else. I just
finished a dev bootcamp myself but I have recruited for developers in the past
at a few startups.

~~~
gdiocarez
Wow, rebuilding and simplifying websites is a great idea. Thanks.

------
mattdw
Honestly, I'm not sure that anyone can answer this for you. As a freelance web
dev myself, I can barely answer it for myself.

I suggest starting by setting a bare minimum for yourself – the rate you need
to charge to survive. Freelancing should probably be about double the rate of
full-time employment, as you have a lot of unchargeable (or just plain idle)
time, so you have to allow for that.

Then, it's really just a matter of looking around and trying to figure out
what other people are earning for similar work. It also helps if you have some
idea of the value you're providing for your clients, as your rate should be
roughly proportional to that.

For instance, I know one of my main clients charges out (both my time and
theirs) at a flat rate of NZ$150/hr, and a bunch of their time is unbilled, so
the NZ$80 they pay me is in the "reasonable" zone (especially for pretty solid
guarantees of ongoing work). My "survival" base rate would be about NZ$60/hr
(NZ$40/hr at the kind of hours I manage to bill wouldn't really provide me a
living.)

But like I say, you're in entirely different circumstances to me, so the
details don't really translate at all. It's a matter of (for all of us)
figuring it out for yourself, really.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thanks for the advice. I should focus on that "survival rate" so I know what
my pay would be.

~~~
tomjen3
You should know that rate BUT DON'T CHARGE THAT rate.

Patio11, whose judgement I will defer to in all things regarding freelancing,
just tweeted this, earlier today:

>Far too many freelancers have an internal script where you have to start your
biz in poverty and claw your way out of it. Eff that.

And:

>Professional work commands a professional rate, on day one. That's what
professional _means_.

Also his general remark regarding rates: Charge more.

------
akmarinov
You should go read "Double your freelancing" by Brennan Dunn
[http://doubleyourfreelancing.com](http://doubleyourfreelancing.com)

Also check out his blogs, his book goes exactly through how to figure out all
your questions, like how much shouldnyou charge, how to find clients, etc
While you probably won't be charging 100+$/hour at thr beggining you can work
your way up to that eventually.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thank you for the link. I'll read into this.

------
Legogris
Side tangent (and maybe this should be its own thread), but I would be
interested to know what is generally considered billable time - where do you
generally draw the line?

Learning a common tool (say Rails) that you will have to use for the project?
Learning a very specific tool (say a function-specific library for some
particular part of the project) that you have not previously claimed prior
knowledge of? Studying the clients own existing code?

What about negotiations? Research into the required work needed for particular
functionality?

~~~
mattdw
My projects are generally quoted, so a lot of this is not always relevant to
me (although they affect how I quote things), but, my thoughts:

\- Learning core software/skills is not billable. "Core" is "any decent dev in
this niche already knows this stuff." That's the stuff you read up on in your
evenings. (One way my main client works around this is to have a senior dev
always quote the tech side. Even if a junior dev does the work, they only get
paid the quote, so they effectively self-adjust their hourly rate according to
their skill level.)

\- I would charge (and have charged) reading the docs, figuring out how to
compile, and integrating a third-party payment lib I'd never seen before. So,
specific tools/libs outside of the norm, I consider chargeable.

\- Research for what I do is usually a write-off, but I can sometimes work a
couple hours into the quote for a prototype if there are big unknowns. Or,
before quoting, I say "give me a couple of hours to prototype, with the
understanding that if we go ahead it's a component of the quote, if we don't
go ahead you'll pay me anyway." Sometimes I don't charge the prototype, but
it's instrumental in convincing the client to go ahead at all, so it's still a
win.

\- Tangent of a tangent, but kinda related to your 'research' point – quoting
is really hard, mainly because quoting _thoroughly_ approaches the complexity
of doing the work for real. So a lot of my quotes are "if things go how I hope
they will this will take 1 hour. If things go badly I'll come back and talk to
you because we could be looking at days." Unknowns are really hard to quote
without just doing the work.

------
downandout
1) Compete on skills, not price. There will always be people charging less
than you, but that's OK. Find similarly skilled/experienced remote workers in
developed countries, send them a sample RFP, and ask several for a quote. They
will readily respond, and you'll have a very solid grasp of what you should
charge.

2) Unless clients have legacy code, most don't care how their mission is
achieved; they only care that it gets done on time and on budget. When talking
with them, focus on _what_ you will do for them - not on _how_ you will do it.

3) On the matter of budget, the bigger the better. Financially constrained
clients are not worth your time. They must squeeze more out of every dollar,
which means squeezing _you_. In the words of famed bank robber Willie Sutton:
_" Go where the money is."_

------
jey
If you're a skilled Ruby on Rails programmer, you can get well over $20/hr as
a remote contractor. It might take some time to build up to the higher pay
rates, but it's certainly doable, and you can probably make decent money along
the way as you develop your skills. You could try sites like ODesk and Elance
on your own, but you should also consider joining an "offshoring" firm as an
employee to learn more about the business and develop your skills.

Caveat: being a successful contractor requires more than good programming
skills. You also need to be an effective communicator, find clients, plan and
manage projects, etc.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thanks for the sites. I'll try those two.

------
html5web
I'm NYC based Front-End Web developer and I'm earning $20 an hour, do you
think it's time to move to another company?

~~~
philangist
To piggyback off your comment, I'm a backend developer (primarily
Python/Django) with 1.5 yrs experience making 60k/yr in NYC.I feel that I
might be underpaid and plan on asking for a raise but I'm not sure what salary
range I should price myself in. Any NYC devs here able to give me some
feedback?

~~~
morgante
It really depends on your abilities (I largely don't care about years of
experience). Do you have a github?

Assuming that you're not exceptionally good, at 1.5years I'd still put you in
the junior category with around $80-90k/yr.

~~~
philangist
I do have a github. I've got a few repos on there, all of varying scope and
quality. It'd be cool if you could check it out here and let me know what you
think: [https://github.com/philangist](https://github.com/philangist)

~~~
morgante
I'd say you're probably looking at around $90k.

------
brickcap
Pricing your self is just one aspect of being a successful freelancer. There
is a lot of other stuff that you have got to keep in mind including: client
satisfaction, getting paid on time(or at all!), finding new clients, letting
go of existing clients, dealing with failure etc

One of the books that has really helped me and the one which I refer to
constantly is "thefreelancery" by walt kania [1] Give it a read. I am sure you
will find it useful.

There is another book that focuses more on the "survival" part of your
freelance journey. The freelancer's survival guide[2] by Kristine Kathryn
Rusch.

My experience has been that

a) your rate usually depends upon your perceived ability to successfully
deliver. Prove to your prospects that you can and they will be more willing to
give what you ask

b)Don't mention where you are from (unless you are okay with your prospects
discriminating on price based on your location, it's sad but it's true)

c) If you have trouble finding >$50/hr jobs then what you do instead is quote
a fixed price (non refundable 1/4 in advance) and finish the job in fewer hrs
it takes some practise to identify high income and low effort projects though

All the best :)

[1][http://thefreelancery.com/portable-
wisdom/](http://thefreelancery.com/portable-wisdom/)
[2][http://kriswrites.com/freelancers-survival-guide-table-of-
co...](http://kriswrites.com/freelancers-survival-guide-table-of-
contents/#sthash.aElbivOX.m4tkcjAZ.dpbs)

~~~
gdiocarez
Thank you for the advise. I'll read on those books.

------
kspaans
As a kind of food-for-thought question rather than a topic-hijacker, how much
should cost of living be taken into account for your pricing?

E.G. if living in Manila is 50% cheaper than living in SF
([http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-
living/comparison/manila/s...](http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-
living/comparison/manila/san-francisco)) (and my apologies to gdiocarez if
they don't live in Manila!) you probably shouldn't price yourself at 50% of
the wage of a US remote worker. But what about, say, 5% cheaper than the
competition so that you can compete on price (or indeed earn more, relatively
speaking) without devaluing your skills?

I think current advice here does a good job of giving you some algorithms for
taking your cost-of-living and working upwards to a reasonable wage from
there.

(Full Disclosure: I've worked in Waterloo, Canada and currently in London UK,
so I'm used to a generally lower salary than comparable jobs in the US and
currently pay similar living costs to SF and NYC. :P)

~~~
bitJericho
Or price yourself 5 percent higher and employers will thank you're 5 percent
better than everyone else.

~~~
kspaans
Yeah good point. Others have also made good arguments that it's silly to base
your price on cost-of-living. :)

------
d0m
One small advice is to work on the whole project, not just a small part of it.

If you have a very clear backend specification, it's very easy to find a good
RoR freelancer to code it. Or, if you have an exact and thoughtful wireframe,
practically any UI person could do a good job. And html? There are thousands
of freelancer on Elance/Odesk that will charge 5$/hour. Will they all be the
same quality? Of course not. But the point is it's very hard to differentiate
yourself for a prospective client.

Now, taking on the whole project is much harder and requires more experience
but it pays off because there's less competition. More specifically, if you
can gather the requirements and really understand the problem, finding the
best technology for it, coding it and managing other freelancers as well as
delivering a high quality project with amazing documentation.. that's gold.

It's so much better to charge for a whole project than bill per hour.

------
samble
It seems like your best bet is to move to Cebu or Metro Manila and get a job
in BPO. You can start around 40,000 PHP a month pretty easily (30,000 very
easily) from what I see on Jobstreet and when I go to hire. Competition for
devs is fierce in the city between the different ROHQ's and BPO companies.

Actually we're (ROHQ) trying to hire a junior .NET dev in Makati city, here's
the link if you want to apply:
[http://jobs.jobstreet.com/ph/jobs/5088558?fr=21&src=12](http://jobs.jobstreet.com/ph/jobs/5088558?fr=21&src=12)

If you'd rather contract and work remote, best of luck to you! I have no idea
what that market is like. If you're not in the city, it seems like your
internet's not going to be stable enough for reliable work, and if you are,
maybe it's easier to brave the traffic as you get your feet under you career-
wise.

------
AlexNeoNomad
If you go to freelance, don't make your price lower than $20, even for a
beginner it's a normal price. I'm disappointed and desperate to see A LOT OF
indians and people from SE Asia who are ready to work for a plate of rice,
they are ready to work for $5! Don't be that stupid.

That situation also affects the employers: they see so low prices and they
consider that normal. If I were to ask those employers: would you be able to
survive in your country (mostly America) for $5-10 per hour, I'd be stoked to
listen to their answers!

------
scottydelta
Hey gdiocarez, I am a student from India and still in college, I started out
freelancing on Odesk with an hourly rate of 5$/hr and soon realized I was in
demand and started raising my price over months. And soon I was charging
25$/hr before one of my clients hired me full time 40hrs a week at a rate of
15$/hr. So you should get started with freelancing and you will eventually
know your price. If a client likes your work, he/she will be ready to pay more
on next project and thats how you increase your price.

~~~
gdiocarez
Wow, thanks for telling your story.

------
zhte415
I suggest getting back to university.

It is about future-proofing. And for this, the actual university doesn't
matter much.

A college degree is required for pretty much any medium to large company. This
is especially so for international companies in developing countries. Think
long term: 5 to 10 years down the road all kinds of opportunities can open up,
don't exclude yourself from them.

A college degree is (amongst other things) a document, a passport, and without
one you will have incredible obstacles to overcome.

~~~
klibertp
> and without one you will have incredible obstacles to overcome.

Not very true in my experience. Just last year my friend landed a job in
Samsung without even BSc and he's now flying to Korea on a monthly basis. Last
month he got an offer from Fujitsu. And the funniest part: he's a self-taught
JavaScript programmer. This is not a proof, just an anecdote - but one not
entirely uncommon in our industry.

Sure, there are useful things you'd learn in a university, but you can also
learn them by yourself. I did. It's so much cheaper that way and just as
effective. It's completely irrelevant where does your knowledge and skill come
from as long as you have them and can prove it.

During the last decade of my professional software development work there were
perhaps two times where not having "a passport" was a bit of a problem. But
never a deal breaker, much less "incredible obstacles".

Nowadays it's easier than ever, with online courses everywhere, some free and
others infinitely cheaper than university fees. My advice is pretty generic
here: have a github account with lots of fun stuff, have a blog documenting
interesting projects you do (even failures), answer SO questions, go to
conferences, build a decent portfolio and so on.

~~~
gdiocarez
Nice story, I'am only the RoR programmer in the company and others doing
codeigniter. I already asked for another RoR programmer to help me manage 3
colleges. Though they(new employees) ended up not knowing RoR instead do CI.

------
vinceguidry
Price yourself just a little higher than you feel comfortable doing. You
should _almost_ feel like a fraud by asking for that much money. Having been
in your position before, I recognized that this question essentially boils
down to confidence. The more confident you are, the higher you can price
yourself and still be effective at getting clients.

You're looking for an absolute answer to a problem that doesn't work by that
kind of logic. There's no big price sheet in the sky that says that guys with
your experience level should get $X per hour.

Think of yourself like a priceless painting at an auction. Nobody knows how
much you're worth until someone digs deep into their wallet and pays $X
million dollars for you. And the reason that caused him to do that could be as
much about his art-hungry, gold-digging spouse as it does about anything to do
with the painting.

So get used to bargaining. There's a bunch of negotiating tips you can use to
get better compensated, they're scattered all over the web. A big one is to
never drop your price. Have the chutzpah to stand firm. People will use dirty
tricks to get you to drop your price. You have to get wise to them, or you'll
never be able to really do well.

------
wpietri
The number you're looking for exists in some theoretical sense, but I don't
think knowing it will do you any good.

The price appropriate for you is the one that when you charge it to the market
you can reach, you'll sell the number of hours you want to sell.

This depends on your skills both as a programmer and as a marketer. Your
skills, the market you can reach, and the broader market are all changing.
Indeed, it's your job to expand the first two.

Treat this as a set of experiments. Try setting your price at $15/hour. Can
you sell all the hours you want? Great, then tell the next client who asks
that your price is $25/hr. Eventually you will discover a level that keeps you
as busy as you want.

At that point you may, if you like, start asking how you can bill even more.
New skills? Better marketing? Different clients? Building a team?
Alternatively, you can just keep plugging away.

------
lnanek2
You should charge as much as you can charge while still getting work. For
fully remote work as a programmer, honestly, it tends to top out at $45/hour
for experienced people. If you aren't experienced yet, you can't charge as
much. This is because there's basically infinite workers willing to work in
Europe on programming at that price.

For someone who can meet in person in the US, on site, with a legal ability to
work and then works remotely you can do double that. For someone on site rates
easily reach $200/hour and above. My Dad used to bill $213/hour doing neural
network programming for credit card companies. Generally you spend Monday-
Thursday on site consulting, often expensing a hotel, then head home for the
weekend.

~~~
justinsteele
$45 is absolutely not the top range. A previous startup paid more than that to
our overseas developers. It is definitely lower than a US contractor rate, but
not by that level.

------
dagw
One 'trick' that has worked for very well for me on several occasions is to
offer a fixed price rather than an hourly rate. This does however require that
the job has very clear deliverables and the you have a very good feel for how
much work the job actually is. It's especially helpful if you've already done
something very similar in the past and already solved all the hard problems
once.

In my experience many clients prefer knowing up front how much a job will cost
rather than having to worry about arguing about hours as a project drags on.
I've managed to essentially get double and triple my normal hourly rate this
way, while the client still walked away feeling like he got a very good deal.

~~~
kevinelliott
Otherwise known as fixed bid.

This is dangerous, in most cases, because clients are not looking out for you
-- by definition they look out for themselves. It is not in your best interest
to offer a fixed bid because undoubtedly problems out of your control will
arise, and you are on the hook for it.

Furthermore, since the client is not always benevolent, you may be expected to
implement changes outside of the scope of the contract, and this can often
sour the relationship when you explain that it can't be done in the fixed bid
you supplied. If you were upfront about a time and materials (T&M) beyond the
agreement of the fixed bid, then you can protect yourself from this situation.

------
nesu
Hi,

Thank you for your courage in making this post. I am from the Philippines too.
Like you, I did not finish college. Yeah, it's really hard in this country to
get a corporate programmer job if you don't have that piece of paper.

I am solely a freelancer for about 4 years now (not full time though, as I
don't get to work 8 hours a day). I get mixed results with my career as a
freelancer (oDesk, Elance, etc.). Sometimes the monthly income is so high I
can take a vacation for three months. Sometimes, it's very low or nothing at
all. At times I had to borrow from my girlfriend or some friends just to keep
things going. Here are some things that I have learned in my journey:

1\. Make sure that you have winter savings, or it would be hard to raise your
rate even if you are qualified to do so. Before I resigned from my BPO job, I
made sure to have some savings before working freelance full-time.
Unfortunately, TY Ketsana hit, and my house went underwater. I lost my initial
savings, but still I was able to thrive with some projects.

2\. Start with small projects first. Your priority at this time is feedback.
When starting out, my mistake was that I aimed at larger projects first. In
the eyes of most clients, size does not really matter. Your ability to accept
and finish work with good results is more important.

3\. Personalize your cover letter, but keep it short. In my experience,
clients don't like reading lengthy messages. But they take effort in writing
jobs descriptions. Every freelancer should respect that.

4\. Higher-paying clients are generally easier to work with.

5\. As much as possible, charge a fixed-rate for projects. Clients can limit
their risks while you can save yourself from time trackers. If it's going to
be a job for at least six months, it's usually OK. If not, it's often wiser to
give a fixed price. I have seen some bids where their hourly bid is equal to
the fixed-price, and get accepted.

About your employment, I think you can sue your employer for lowering your
rate (if it's at least an established business entity). That's against the
law.

~~~
gdiocarez
I have been told that the company should be sued due to lowering my rate. I'll
take your advise on climbing the ladder. Thanks.

------
mattquiros
I'm from the Philippines, too.

From my experience, you have better chances of getting a better pay AND work-
life balance at a full-time job than in freelance sites (Elance, oDesk,
Freelancer.com). There's barely any decent clients there who are willing to
pay us $30/hr. However, you have the experience, and I'm very well aware that
RoR developers here can easily command a salary of PHP150k-200k every month...
perhaps even more. All you have to do is find the right company, and ask.

If you check out Jobstreet and JobsDB and set the salary filter to a minimum
of 100k, you'll still find plenty of openings for Ruby devs.

~~~
gdiocarez
Wow, I never imagine those 6 figure salary. I'll check on Jobstreet and jobsDB
then. Thanks.

------
dsirijus
It is pretty simple:

1\. Determine how much time are you willing to allocate for work.

2\. Set whatever the price that will fill up that time with client work.

3\. Once you have more clients than allocated time, increase your price.

(bonus) 4. Client pool and time permitting, target projects that will further
evolution/creation of skills you want to improve/develop, not the ones that
you've already good enough at.

To be able to do that, you should have some form of rudimentary tracking of
your time/price/value performance. No need for overkill here, a simple
regulary updated spreadsheet or even just a text file will do. The accent is
on "regulary updated".

------
simonw
Back when I was freelancing the single best piece of advice I got was to keep
on raising my rates until no one would hire me. It's a very simple way of
finding out the price the market will bear for your skills.

~~~
anovikov
Well, that way you will end up working on ridiculous things with stupid or
noob clients. In the end, that kills your value. Customers who want real stuff
also know how to hire so they won't hire overpriced devs.

~~~
simonw
Actually I ended up working on fantastic projects for some excellent clients,
but I had a strong personal reputation and a great network backing me up as
well.

~~~
gdiocarez
Yeah. Network is a big deal too.

------
brandonhsiao
If you plan to work remote, don't charge Phillipines rates just because you
live there. People in the US will easily pay you 5-6x as much for the same
work, and all you have to do is _not say where you live_.

On that note, I second the suggestion to improve your English. Most of your
clients will know absolutely nothing to very little about technology and your
ability to convince them will end up being a function of your command of
English in your email exchanges, Skype chats, cover letters, etc.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thank for that advise "not say where you live"

------
yarnhoj
Start with a "Salary" that you would like to earn. Where I am at Software
Engineers go for around 100k + Benefits. If you conservatively figure 20% of
salary for benefits then the total number is about 120k. Still tracking with
me? Now divide that number by the number of man hours in a year (1928) or the
number of hours you are willing to work. In my example you would have to
charge 62.24/Hr to cover that cost.

~~~
sethammons
You do that, and then double the result.

------
pix3lbauce
Try checking other freelancers on sites such as odesk and elance.Compare their
expertise and experience with your as a measure in molding your own rate.

------
majc2
It's not entirely clear if you want a regular job or to freelance/consult.
Lots of good advice on here re: freelance. If you want a salaried job checkout
weworkremotely.com for finding 'western' priced remote working jobs.

You're in quite an enviable position - your in a location where your cost of
living is relatively quite cheap to the west, but the potential to earn
western type wages - enjoy :)

------
gdiocarez
Thank you all for your feedback. I have learned more not just about pricing
here. I'll do my research on developing my communication skills.

I'm not from marketing and sales. We are managing college school data. I have
build from enrollment to accounting. Our boss just discuss about our sales and
market that is why I know how the company works.

Here is link to my projects if anyone is wondering: arcibalio.com/works

------
clockwerx
I work with a number of staff in the same spot you are. A year is unlikely to
cut it re overseas clients. With hiring one of the most impressive things is
open source work or blogging about how to do things: seniors do this from
frustration, but they're are plenty of early lessons that go forgotten. I
would encourage that if you are targeting au companies with existing tech
teams

------
j45
Price is relative to how available, responsive and bug-free your work is, and
how good your attention to detail is before you ever write a line of code.

A key thing you can do is maintain a public github account and show the
quality of your problem solving skills and work. The people who pay more find
these types of insights useful.

------
mathattack
I view the way to bill yourself as "What's the difference between me and the
next best person for the role?"

This means a talented engineering manager will pay you more than an HR person,
and any way into a company that involves HR will underpay you. Just my 2
cents.

------
anupshinde
1\. Are you really good at what you do? This is important. Find out - what a
person charging $100 per hour can do in one hour or few hours. How much time
would you take to complete the same work (with similar quality)? This should
include reworks and the time spent on communication and clarifying stuff.

For a minimum rate in Philippines, I would say you should target 1/2 (or 1/3
if cost of living is really low) of the rates a similarly-productive person
would earn in the US. If you are unable to get even 1/3rd within the first 3-4
months, you should take up a job and improve your overall skills in parallel.
You may find clients and people telling you 1/4th or even 1/6th is good enough
- its a no no, not sustainable.

I work as a consultant and have also hired freelancers occasionally. Your
expected rate is certainly doable. Even if you start with Elance/ODesk you can
easily achieve $25ph pretty quickly if you can communicate well, and ask
important questions. Also try to get long-term work at your expected rate and
charge higher for short term work. I find it easier to get a fixed-cost
projects at a better rate compared to getting a higher hourly rate.

2\. When working remotely you have lesser chances of charging more than half
the rate of a similar person living and working in the US (and with rest of
the western world). Even if you charge half of that say $50ph, you are doing
really good. Beyond that, try starting a firm and build local presence.

3\. For money, focus on a particular type of work you can get good at pretty
quickly. If you are an RoR person - stick to it. Allocate few hours if you
want to do something like PHP or some strange new tech - just to learn.

4\. Once you are set and earn a minimum rate comfortably, target not to work
above 20 hours per week. Typically many people have degraded productivity
above 24-25 hours per week. Focus on efficiency and improving it consistently.
Leave the rest of 20 hours for reading, educating yourself, increasing domain
knowledge, for hobby stuff and figuring out ways on how to charge higher :)

5\. Write blogs, contribute to open-source, answer questions on stack-
overflow, take up learning some bleeding edge stuff. I usually get a lot of
work just because of these.

Market economics, opportunities, education, language and culture for North
American region and Asian region is quite different and sometimes counter-
intuitive. So when a US-based-person says "I can get $100ph fairly easily" \-
you should always introspect what/how they are doing differently.

~~~
gdiocarez
Thank you for the advise.

------
avinassh
sorry for hijacking the topic. I started learning programming recently and I
have been programming since past 1.5 years and I consider my skill to be
somewhat between beginner to intermediate. I know Tornado, Flask and Django.

My question is, is it okay for a beginner like me to work remotely? For some
reasons I will be leaving my current job soon and move to a small city where
are jobs. So my only option is remote jobs. However some friends/colleagues
suggested me that it would be a bad idea cos in a real job I could be learning
under an expert which is not possible in remote situation and so, I should
move out to city.

Any advice? Thank you.

------
franzpeterstein
Software DEV. 4k+/Month 100€/Hour Germany

~~~
thejdude
Since I'm also based in Germany, may I ask how you do marketing, where you get
your gigs? Agencies, word of mouth, previous employment?

What technologies do you do, do you cover the whole tech spectrum in that
area, how many years experience, are you in Bavaria (where rates are a bit
higher than elsewhere)?

Most advertised job offers seem to be only through agencies, and over here
hardly any freelancers work without agencies. Plus 100€/hr is pretty high (for
a non-company rate), so you must be doing something right.

------
motyar
I am form India, started working $5/hrs and now I charge $20-22/hr.

Odesk and Freelance.com are good places to start looking for remote work.

------
mc_hammer
In the US people will typically not respond to a job posting unless it is
40/hr. 30/hr is too low for most knowledgable developers, who could go another
place and get 50 or 75/hr.

cheers.

~~~
gdiocarez
That is already big pay here. I was negotated by an employeer in US then asked
me of my previous salary and want to base my salary on what I have been
earning.

~~~
sudowhodoido
Lie to them to bump it up or tell them that your previous employer asked not
to disclose it. Works every time. They're using a standard technique to smack
your pay down and it works for a lot of people but there's nothing wrong with
playing them at their own game and using it against them. Not joking but when
it comes to negotiating pay, you need to take control over it.

I managed to go from (I've converted these from GBP) $23k to $56k by doing
that in one jump and three jumps later I'm earning $110k sitting on my butt at
home. Just requires some balls and outward confidence which I will admit was
slightly alcohol fuelled when I was on the phone _choke_ hmm.

Plus I know what I'm doing but that's a case of two decades of hard work and
is entirely separate to the job market and salary expectations unfortunately
which is all about knocking people's salary down.

~~~
hackerboos
Are you self-employed or remote?

I've found remote work hard to come by in the UK.

~~~
sudowhodoido
Both. I do anything that comes by. I'm currently contracting to a large
financial company in the UK, fixing a pile of laptops to sell on ebay, doing a
couple of web sites for people in europe and rewriting an ASP.Net web app for
a company in Ireland.

Remote work is easy to find in the UK, but through word of mouth. You'll get
nothing through the agents.

------
durich
Here, or in Japan? because you know the Japanese are more enlightened. They
can see beyond the physical

~~~
omarchowdhury
lmfao

