

How Much To Charge for iOS development - zackabaker

I am a fairly new iOS developer. I am also a sophomore in high school. Recently I interviewed for a job at a law firm. The task is to create a relatively simple application that will allow you to view laws and download them. It will also possibly offer access to newsletters and contact information. Not too difficult. But they have asked me too set the price. I have absolutely no idea how much to charge. I&#x27;ve tried to do research online but I haven&#x27;t found a good baseline. Also I must keep in mind that they are hiring a high school student instead or a professional developer so I cannot charge them what a normal developer would charge. Could anyone tell me how much they think would be fair to both of us? Thank you!
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davismwfl
I would say if you charged $2k/week and met your promises you would make one
hell of a name for yourself. As prof devs we charge more than that, but I have
found that the more we deliver the more we can charge and frankly the more we
can frankly demand. 4-5k/week is still fairly (cheap) reasonable per developer
depending on your area and experience, just to give you an idea. But for a
newbie, I would stick with the 1.5k-2.5k/week. And please don't try and charge
per hour, our experience is it just never works out in the benefit of anyone.
If you are learning on the job, then it isn't fair to the client, and if you
aren't and are proficient then your estimate should easily take into
consideration the weekly billable rate and hours to complete the project. When
you bill by the hour my experience is people feel you owe them every minute
and will chase you for it, if you bill by the week and provide them valuable
service they are more than happy to let you be and get your work done.

At least that has been our experience over the past few years.

Good luck either way, and make sure you graduate with good grades, regardless
of your choices for college! Also, charge 1.5-2k/week and ask them that for
the consideration of a discount you want to utilize their name in advertising
or as a reference on future work. It is all your risk to deliver and do your
job, but pays you back massively over time, not to mention rarely will people
object to this if you do your job.

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mattquiros
What would be a professional developer's rate then? Should one charge higher
if the project involves building the back-end yourself?

Also, exactly what does it take to qualify as a "professional" developer, by
which I don't think you merely mean being a mobile developer full-time, but
actually having some set of qualifications?

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knappador
You're probably not very good yet, just judging on experience. The best way to
have a happy relationship is for you, the party causing the most risk, to
charge a flat-rate for the final product and eat the costs of overruns and
tangential development (or profit if by some miracle you deliver ahead of your
target). This will force you to focus on productivity and making the right
business decisions. It will also lock the cost into value delivered instead of
attempting to get something you're happy with for some as-yet-unknown amount
of work it will take you that also doesn't reflect the cost to you of value
delivered. Flat rate. Charge for value. Figure out how to deliver value, not
how to make crystal ball predictions and BS your way through client meetings
when you go 2x over on hours. It's safe, low stress, and puts the focus right
where it should be.

Also, the flat-rate model lets you ask them up-front, with no loopholes
involved, for $X where X is constant and the deliverable is a static goal, Y
(don't let them scope creep or else adjust X). Most importantly, you can ask
for what you think the value is instead of asking the client to guess how much
your vague hourly estimate and project estimate will wind up costing in the
long run. They know it's X, no more, no less. Ask medium. Negotiate if it
seems like you asked high. Resist if you want to gamble that they're on a
fishing expedition or have reason to believe so. Ask X for Y and deliver Y and
accept no less than X.

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fbpcm
I build iOS apps for businesses and have to set and justify prices for project
all the time. I also started an web design company when I was a sophomore in
high school and it would have been great having someone advise me on pricing
back then so I will gladly help you. Send me an email and we'll figure out how
much the app is worth to the law firm and what you should charge them for the
app. My email is david . olesch at gmail.

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xauronx
Man, these people are crazy suggesting $2k per week. That might "only" be
$25/hr but it's going to take you 2 or 3 times as long as a pro dev studio to
make the product (and as good as you are, you're still not going to do as good
of a job as them, that's the truth.) So, you'll be charging effectively $75/hr
and not doing as good of a job... I would say that's a bit aggressive.

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vellum
Flat rate is a pretty good suggestion. Another idea is to use milestones. Pick
a set of features, deliver by a certain date, they pay you, rinse and repeat.
This reduces the risk on them, in that they won't be out for the whole amount.
It reduces risk for you, in that you won't be limbo, if they take a while to
get back to you on something.

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zachlatta
You may be a high school student during the day, but you're a working
professional at night.

Charge hourly. Development will take at least twice as long as you think it
will. I'd start at around $15/h.

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ninetax
$2000 per week of work

