
Ask HN: How do Freelancers decide their price (per project)? - nevatiaritika
I am new to the freelancing world. No idea to quote how much.<p>Most of the advice I get online is x$ per hour. But that&#x27;s not really helping me. I have a full-time job to do and it&#x27;s difficult for me to allocate hours per day&#x2F;week. I will freelance as per my will in a given deadline.<p>However how do I quote a price on the project? To make a web application with 5 features say?
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byoung2
A long time ago I came across an ebook from Sitepoint that talked about this
very subject. Pricing per hour has the effect of placing a cap on your income:
your hourly rate x the max hours you can bill in a year.

Instead, you should bill based on the value to the client, in terms of
increased revenue or decreased costs. For example, in 2007 I built an online
appointment scheduler with real-time availability for a high end Beverly Hills
hair salon. It took about 20 hours of work total. If I billed say $50 an hour
I'd have $1000. Instead I sold them on the fact that they didn't need to hire
a full time receptionist at $24k per year, and I was able to charge them $6000
for the project. They are still using this system today.

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eberkund
I have heard people advocate this before, and it makes sense until you ask
yourself why should the business pay you $6000 for the project when they can
hire (assuming similar competency) another developer to do the same thing for
$1000?

You aren't just competing with their existing solution, you are competing with
other developers that they are likely collecting quotes from.

IMO your ability to charge them $6000 was based more on them not knowing
exactly how much work went into the project and not the value it saved the
company.

~~~
byoung2
_why should the business pay you $6000 for the project when they can hire
(assuming similar competency) another developer to do the same thing for
$1000?_

This was also addressed in the ebook, and charging significantly more than
your competitors is a strategy in itself. If they go with a competitor based
on price, this is not a client I want (low end market ironically is more
demanding than the high end). I get fewer clients, but still make more money
than the cheaper guy (e.g. sell 1000 Bentleys or 20,000 Fords).

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gregjor
There are a few models for freelancer pricing.

1\. Wild guess.

2\. Figure out how much the customer is willing to spend.

3\. Figure out how much you need to make.

4\. Get estimate from a cheaper freelancer on UpWork, X 2.

5\. Through experience understand the customer, the job, and your own
productivity.

The questions you are asking demonstrate that you aren't ready for
professional freelancing, so any of the first four models I listed will work
for you.

Since customers are usually interested in both budget and schedule,
freelancing "as per my will in a given deadline" should make you even more
attractive.

Don't like snarky, sarcastic replies? Then take yourself seriously and don't
insult professional freelancers. With just a little bit of effort you can read
hundreds of articles about freelancing, project estimation, scheduling, client
relationships, requirements gathering, planning, and execution. Actually
learning these things and doing them right takes practice. A professional
freelancer is not just an unemployed developer or someone with extra time on
their hands.

My freelancing business is taking over projects that failed or stalled because
of bad estimates, bad schedules, bad planning, bad execution, and poor
communication. So welcome to the "freelancing world," you're keeping me in
business.

I have several relevant articles on my own website about freelancing. You can
find plenty of good advice (and even more bad advice) online.

