

Ask HN: What should be my hourly compensation? what is yours? - throwaway

I've been working as freelance web designer/developer in an Asian country. I primarily get projects through referrals. My current clients have very low budgets. Since, small businesses here are not comfortable with variable (hourly) pricing. I've been doing fixed rate projects only.<p>I consider myself decent at front end design, front end coding and ruby on rails. I have few finished rails applications I've developed, which I haven't hosted because I don't have a server with good rails support.<p>Enough about my background. Now I get approached by people from countries like US for freelancing, after checking my github or stackoverflow profile.<p>Now, since I haven't worked on hourly rate basis, and I'm working for incredibly low price for clients here(recently finished an ecommerce website design and front end coding for $300). I don't know what should be my hourly compensation in respect to the work I deliver.<p>So, I seek you guys/gals help. What should be my hourly rate for doing rails work? and for doing front end coding?<p>If you are comfortable, please share your hourly compensation and some insights regarding this subject matter.<p>Thanks
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aoprisan
I supposed it depends where your client is located. In the US northeast, a
senior developer makes around $50-80/hr. I've done a few fix rate Rails
projects that took about 20-30 hours in all for about $5k, so around $25/hr.

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throwaway
The client is New York based. BTW do you mean $250/hr for fixed projects?

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nayefc
Pretty sure he said $25 and not $250..

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kevinrpope
$5000/20 hours = $250/hr

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gamechangr
Your math is right, but his suggestion is wrong. No way should he charge $250.
That's crazy, unless you are in the top 1% in mobile apps. Even then is sounds
a little high.

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kevinrpope
Completely agree - but it does bring up an interesting point: bidding on
projects at a fixed rate _can_ lead to higher hourly rates (although
definitely not always, especially for someone just starting).

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MattBearman
I'm based in the UK, but work with American clients, my rate is £45 / hour,
which is currently about $68 / hour.

To give some perspective, I do Rails, PHP, JavaScript, and front end, and I've
got around 6 years experience.

