

Ask HN: What should I do to be able to raise my rates? - aymeric

The recent post about Sam charging $1000/hr (http://samsoff.es/posts/one-thousand-dollars-an-hour) and the fact that my current client just spent $30K on a load testing provider who didn't provide much value made me think about the things I should do to be able to naturally raise my rates.<p>Here are the things I can think of:<p>- Raise my profile by speaking in local events<p>- Polish my website to showcase my experience (10 years in .NET and numerous side projects)<p>- Pick a niche that provides high perceived value: security / training / load testing (apparently)<p>- Charge per day or per week rather than per hour (as suggested by patio11)<p>What else do you suggest me to do or has worked for you?
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patio11
The easiest way to raise your rates is to raise your rates.

Totally not joking. One of the reasons tptacek and I go on the war path about
this is that us geeks seem to be culturally abominable at properly pricing
things. I mean, half the comments on the $1,000 an hour rate are people who a)
are geeks selling services and b) _want the geek to lose_.

There are other ways to raise your rates:

1) Specialize in a particular thing which is in-demand by...

2) ... savvy clients who receive a high, easily quantifiable value from it and
...

3) ... has limited competition available.

But even HNers who do, e.g., commodity PHP web development could probably get
50-100% more just by turning down anyone who doesn't pay 50-100% more.

~~~
nicholassmith
I think it's the fear point of 'if I do this and put my prices up, what
happens if I get _no_ clients'. Which of course is a reasonable thing to be
scared of, and if it doesn't work then drop your prices back and work out what
you can do to be more valuable.

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brk
Why do you need a specific reason?

If you feel you are worth more money, starting quoting projects appropriately.
The market will respond with data ( or lack thereof) which you can
incorporate.

~~~
aymeric
How do you find higher paying clients for example?

How do you push the upper boundary of how much you can charge without turning
away all your leads?

~~~
patio11
_How do you find higher paying clients for example?_

There's many ways to do this. One way is to figure out who has ability and
desire to pay for things in your area of expertise. I help folks sell
software. One way to find people who are capable and desire to pay $$$$ for
selling more software is to go to conferences about that that charge, e.g.,
$2,000 per ticket. If you send a team of five people to that conference,
you're not too likely to be scandalized when I quote you.

 _How do you push the upper boundary of how much you can charge without
turning away all your leads?_

The lowest risk way to do this is to have all of your needs met at your
current utilization level, at which point decreasing your hit rate basically
can't harm you, so why not quote higher? If you get engagements at
$CURRENT_RATE + 25%, then a) your new rate is $CURRENT_RATE + 25% and b)
you've got _even more_ flexibility in turning down engagements.

Repeat as necessary.

~~~
xiaoma
This was my approach with EFL of all things, believe it or not. As a 27 year-
old in Taiwan I was successfully billing $50USD/hour for helping 9 year-olds
with problem areas from their recent beginning-level classes. The rate for
most native English speakers doing that kind of work at the time was
$20USD/hour.

I did have far above the median skills to back it up, though.

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gexla
One element that I feel is quite important in the post you mentioned (Sam
charging 1k per hour) is that Sam has actually shipped something, though I
don't know how successful his app is. I'm guessing that a lot of devs don't
have this experience (A - Z participation in shipping something.) Even a lot
of small start-up devs are likely shielded from many of the headaches that go
into doing something like this. The experience he has picked up is very
valuable and could probably sell a lot of hours in client work.

~~~
aymeric
I actually shipped _a lot_, so you think this can play an important part in
the process?

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orangethirty
Just do it. No one will come down on you or anything. Do a quick A/B test. For
the following clients, split them in two. Given side A your current rate, and
side B your new rate. Measure the difference and prepare to realize that there
is none. People who will hire you will hire you. Money gravitates to those who
ask for it, and not to those who "deserve" it.

