

Ask HN: Lowest salary for a programmer? - shire

How much should an entry level programmer&#x2F;web developer charge for work?<p>I&#x27;m thinking either for a company or maybe freelancing at home.<p>What&#x27;s the lowest salary ($&#x2F;hr) you would lower yourself too?
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chrisbennet
Competing on price is a losing game. The customers that want a cheap price
will be the most work and hassle. They simply don't value the product or you
i.e. "Why should I pay someone much to type for a few hours?"

It's not intuitive, but raising your price will signal that you and your work
are more valuable AND you will get more and better customers. Consider this:
when _you_ shop for something (that you don't have a lot of knowledge about) I
bet you use the price as one indicator of quality. Same for services: Your
customers will think "If he can charge $XXX hour, he must be good."

It is so common to devalue your own abilities as developer that it is a
cliche' (Google "imposter syndrome"). In reality, your ability to deliver real
value to a business/client happens long before you consider yourself an
"expert".

I have 2 rates. (1) Free (2) Full price. In my experience, customers don't
appreciate introductory discounted rates. Instead, they feel ripped off when
you start charging them the full rate.

I don't have time to find the links now but HN'er Patrick McKenzie "Patio11"
has written great stuff on this. See his blog on Kalzumeus Software.

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davidw
In London, Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma, or a rural village in Vietnam?

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wsc981
Depends on the country. In The Netherlands (and perhaps most of Western
Europe) I don't think it's wise to go much below 50 EUR an hour (ex. VAT) when
freelancing.

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tmaly
back when I was still in the university around 1999, I would charge $15 to $20
an hour for freelance web based projects. I think with a greater demand and
the general price of things you could charge a bit more if you are in the US
or Western Europe. That being said, $15 an hour is a top rate for a senior
software engineer in the Philippines. I recently interviewed a few programmers
when I was in Manila.

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shire
Seattle, WA

