
Ask HN: What income can I expect as an online freelance full-stack developer? - candlefather
I&#x27;ve got some years of experience of working in startups, and I&#x27;m confident enough to say that I can deliver complex full stack applications at a high quality in good time. I&#x27;ve done full stack development and devops and product work... I&#x27;m good with people (clients) and I can follow through.<p>I&#x27;m willing to put in the time and effort needed in marketing myself, applying and looking for jobs, and generally &#x27;managing&#x27; myself as a freelancer.<p>I currently live in Israel, working full time for a startup here, I would earn about 8-9K$ monthly (before taxes of course).<p>What can I expect to get to as an online freelancer - what&#x27;s the best case scenario (I manage to keep myself busy with high-paying projects) ? 
What&#x27;s the average scenario for someone with my capabilities ?
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davelnewton
I'm not sure how this is answerable.

Best case is essentially unlimited, e.g., $200-500 USD/hr. If you go on a
project basis, the hourly rate could end up being very, very high. Or
mediocre. Or even low.

Average? We have no idea what your capabilities are, so we can't factor that
into the equation. Average is probably closer to $50-125 USD.

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candlefather
Thanks ! I think you gave a great answer ! Where did you get those numbers if
you don't mind me asking ?

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kevinherron
He pulled them out of his arse, which is exactly how freelance/consulting
pricing works.

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davelnewton
Yup!

That's how I started billing clients initially; basically making stuff up,
estimating project complexity v. time-to-implement, and so on.

Eventually they were reasonably accurate, then I stopped doing it for awhile.
I've toyed with the idea of getting back into it again, but I'm a terrible
hustler, and don't have the patience for it :(

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Calist0
How do you find clients/work? Were you contracting?

I've always been curious about how freelancers make such a high hourly,
because freelance websites are full of people charging $15/hr.

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tedmiston
By delivering quality and focusing on clients that don't care about pinching
pennies.

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Calist0
But do many of those clients exist on sites like upwork?

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kohanz
To find clients that will pay good rates you're mostly going to have to deal
with them directly, which rules out most sites that try to act as a middle-
man.

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chrisked
It depends on where you get your clients from. If you use marketplaces like
upwork your hourly rate will suffer. Especially at the beginning. From my
experience you need to build a strong profile with 25+ reviews from completed
jobs.

I'd stay away from these places and look at me personal network first. There
might be even clients who do not consider a freelancer on a remote basis
initially, but are happy to try.

Assuming a utilisation rate of 80% you need to bill 10-11.5k a month to match
your current state of earnings. Let's say you want to work 40 hours a week,
then your day rate should be 62,50 USD+

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meticulouschris
My skills sound similar to yours (full-stack w- devops) and I do freelance
development on the side. Before the economy crashed, I had 2 clients. One
paying $120/hr USD, the other $60/hr USD.

After the crash, I couldn't find anyone who would pay over $40/hr. Now things
are slowly getting better; I have 2 clients paying $40/hr and one paying
$60/hr.

I've never done any advertisement, basically these are people saying, "please
help me". They have reached out through a friend of a friend looking for
someone they could trust.

Since this isn't a make-or-break situation for me financially, we tend to
agree on a price that they are comfortable with. These days my starting figure
is $60/hr and I go down from there.

To be able to do marketing, advertising, and to be able to build it into a
business, I'd probably want to be back in the $100-$120/hr range. With that
level, I'd feel comfortable because I'd have the perks of my day job: travel
to conferences, hire employees, save for retirement, good health insurance,
limitless sugary snacks, etc.

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tmaly
If you are in the United States it works out to about 1/3\. but that is on
profit, so you can deduct your expenses to lower the total number.

I am not sure about the tax laws in Israel

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candlefather
Sorry I didn't understand - what works to about 1/3 ?

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tmaly
sorry I miss read. The income tax in the US works out to about 1/3

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wprapido
a fellow israeli here. living in spain, though. you can invoice US$50-100 an
hour if you're any good

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wetwiper
I'm not in Israel, so my answer doesn't contain specific values. I also don't
do freelance work online. So...

My "offline" freelancing work quotations are structured like this: Firstly, I
have a target of how much I want to make in a month, secondly an idea of how
many hours I'm willing to work in a month to reach that target, and finally an
indication of the delivery requirements of the project, if any (some
quotations ask me to specify by when they could reasonably expect delivery,
while others give an idea of when they require delivery). Then, I balance
hours vs money vs delivery. So a project that has a delivery of a month (or
multiple thereof) and means spending mostly all the monthly hours on that
project will attract a rate that means I get out what I intend to for a month.
Something that has a shorter delivery requirement with a higher number of
hours to be spent (those projects where something needs to be done urgently,
for example) the rate is a lot higher since more hours are spent on the
project. I also work in a setup cost for each project, which is not billed
directly but rather included in a higher hourly rate. I'll typically make more
from 4x 1-week projects than 1x 4-week project, but the latter at least
getting me to my target. While the former means a nicer "paycheck" at the end
of the month, it requires more effort to get right, and it means requiring 4
different projects.

Obviously in practice there's other issues to consider, but such things are
picked up over time. For example, projects don't occur one at a time
sequentially. Which means sometimes working on 2 or more projects concurrently
(your choice completely though whether you accept the extra work and whether
you've planned for it). This means when sending the first (and subsequent)
quote out, that the 'weights on the scales' have been adjusted accordingly.
Then there's the consideration that there might not be work for some period,
in which case either the end monetary target needs to be adjusted down for the
period without work, or otherwise have an inflated monetary target to begin
with, the excess of which caters for those periods (you'll need to determine
what is a fair increase and how long it will take to build up a sufficient
amount before you can afford to be without work - that length of time is a
good indicator of savings needed before starting freelancing). Something else
to consider is that a sufficient amount of time will need to be spent on admin
work: generating quotes, responding to emails, invoicing, following up with
payments, meeting (potential) clients , etc. You'll need to decide how to bill
for this time as well.

Aaand I'm almost done with this novel... since you're wanting to do
freelancing work online, you'll need to consider most of the above, but
importantly, that a) your success rate of landing work is likely going to be a
lot lower than what you think, b) the amount of "admin" required increases
(responding to and browsing alerts, etc). All factor in on the total you'll
make in a month.

