Ask HN: How much do you earn on average through software freelancing? - worldexplorer
======
fightfortheuser
I used to charge $50 USD per hour, but I kept upping my rates. Soon I charged
$100 per hour, and then $125 hour. The highest I ever got for
programming/consulting was $150 USD per hour, but I don't charge that anymore.
I've moved on to day rates.

Now I bill around $800 per day, but I only work about 6 super-focused hours,
and I use the Pomodoro method every day. My clients are happy because I get a
lot of work done, and I'm happy because I have to work less.

This is just doing general PHP dev work (Codeigniter and Laravel frameworks),
and if I specialized, and if I focused on the ecommerce or finance industry I
could probably make more. Most my clients are in the Rocky Mountain West, and
so far I have more work than I can finish.

So if you want to increase your earning potential you should:

    
    
      1. Specialize and master a niche.
      2. Network like your business depends on it. 
      3. Give free seminars and teach everywhere you go. 
      4. Label yourself as a consultant.
      5. Don't be just a programmer. Work with businesses and fix their problems. 
      6. Know your worth, and don't be afraid to charge what you're worth. 
      7. Anchor your costs against how much value you'll make your clients.
      8. Keep raising your rates until you can't get any work. 
      9. Work half as much as you used to. 
      10. And finally, spend time on things that matter like family, learning, and having fun.
    

Or you can keep competing against bottom-barrel programmers on upwork, and
spend the rest of your life working for peanuts. Totally up to you.

~~~
throwmenow_0139
I'm 18 years old, doing full-stack web dev for ~2 years (Django, node.js,
whatever.js, no wordpress stuff) and charge ~35-40 euro/hour while studying
computer science. I get most of my projects through word-of-mouth and I'm
currently trying to create products that allow me to build a small company -
I'm partnering up with some software developers, entrepreneurs and a project
manager.

It's not uncommon that web agencies in Germany only charge 70 euro/hour, so I
would like to hear what's necessary to charge something like 100-150 euro/hour
- seems like those rates are only possible in the US or doing specialized
things like SAP consulting. It's difficult to compare those US numbers because
the german system seems to be very different wrt salaries - 60-70k is
considered good even for experienced developers, while it seems that those
numbers are absolutely sub-par for US developers.

Would love to hear some tips on how to acquire new clients (especially in non-
tech industries) and how to find interesting business problems to solve.

My strategy would be to reach out to local companies, analyze their businesses
and build solutions that save them time and money (very similar to business
consulting except doing software engineering) and getting inspiration for SaaS
businesses. Would like to hear your opinion about this way.

~~~
ddorian43
Go remote across the ocean to the promised land of USA. Things in EU suck for
software-people.

Source: Have you ever read of someone making 200K+ in EU ? Me neither.

~~~
tluyben2
At least where I am from it is very strange for people to talk or write about
what they earn. No one would tell you even if you would ask usually. Not that
anyone would ask. But yes, have made that and know plenty of seniors that do.
They would not boast about it though while, but that is the HN echo chamber
maybe, everyone in the US spends solid amounts of time talking and worrying
about it?

~~~
ddorian43
(it's the same in my country, about not showing wages). That just makes things
worse for us software-people.

I didn't write about knowing anyone personally, just about reading on the web.
Your message is the first one that I've seen.

Since you have a .nl domain, I'm a little surprised about it. (was excepting
something like London/SW).

~~~
tluyben2
To be fair most of my paid work is DE or UK or NL enterprise. Those all pay
well in my experience.

------
mthomasb
We're a YC company that put together a visualizer for freelance engineering
and design rates. It draws on a few thousand data points from our freelance
invoice and contract product.

You can filter by location, type of work, and experience:
[https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates](https://www.hellobonsai.com/rates)

~~~
mthomasb
To clarify, these are rates that freelancers quote via our contract tool and
are paid for via our invoicing tool, so it's pretty verified. We also allow
users to submit their rates, but we weight those much less than the data
verified by client payments.

------
mikeleeorg
Back when I was freelancing, I charged around $150-200/hr for fullstack
development.

I know this is on the higher end, but it is definitely possible to find
clients that can afford this higher price point. I routinely took work from
clients that had hired a cheaper team and weren't satisfied with the final
product, needed someone to fix numerous bugs, or to optimize the performance
of their technology.

Also, if you are interested in this higher price point, you need to be ready
to truly partner with your client and help them solve problems, vs just
writing code. This means embedding yourself in their team as much as possible
(which can be done remotely; I always worked remote) and understanding the
actual problems they had, rather than just building what they asked for.

On top of that, you'll need to own your solution all the way through. If your
client doesn't see you as a lot of overhead, and you can act autonomously,
then they'll be even more satisfied with your work and rates.

~~~
vijayr
Could you share the tech stack you work on? Any specific domains?

~~~
danielvf
The tech stack really, really doesn't matter when doing the kind of work he's
talking about. The customer just wants to pay you money for something that
works.

------
eloff
I charge $120/hour for development work. I specialize in low-level,
performance critical stuff, lock-free algorithms, C/C++, assembly, SIMD code.
But most of the work I get is typical full-stack web application development,
with a little mobile stuff sometimes.

I charge half rate to startups in top accelerators, like YC, that haven't
closed an A round yet. The idea is to build relationships with future
customers that have lots of growth potential - but who can't afford $120/hour.

dan"at"closetothemetal.com

I made more when I was working full-time though.

~~~
throwawayNov07
This is interesting.

So you have a performance specialization AND do full-stack web development.
How do you position yourself in the market place?

For example, most of my work is also fullstack web-development, but I also
know how to build highly-available systems with Erlang/Elixir, but I'm not
sure how to squeeze the latter into the messaging.

~~~
_d8fd
At a certain point, it becomes hard to market yourself in a way that maps to
what people understand.

Imagine having a toothpick, saw, wine opener, knife, and other various tools.
Now put them all into the very first Swiss Army Knife and try explaining that
to someone. Who are you going to explain it to? A carpenter who needs full
size professional tools won't need that, but maybe a soldier in the Swiss Army
looking for handy tools to cart around in the field would!

Figuring out who needs your services is the first challenge. Maybe high
availability systems and full stack web development intersects where people
need a front end that ties into a reliable backend (querying a database,
visualizing a system, real time analysys, etc.) That's your target customer.

Does your target customer have a name for full stack plus high availability
already? To make something up, let's call it Full StackOps. Sell them your
Full StackOps wizardry. If target customer has a different name for Full
StackOps, you'll have to try to figure out how to tailor your message per
customer. If there's no name, try making one up!

Or just generate referral for yourself, so anytime customers need a Full
StackOps-like person, their first thought is to call you.

------
daxfohl
I quit my 120K job for a long-term $75/hr gig. Turns out I'm making way less
than I used to. Taxes are way higher and take too long, no benefits or
vacation, have to spend more time on non-billable work. Client is a startup
that's now running into financial issues of its own, so a raise is unlikely.
This is in Kalamazoo. I have young kids and so can't put in a ton of hours to
make up the difference.

Haven't spent enough time marketing, or really just don't know how to go about
it. Living in small-town midwest it seems hard to make contacts. Everyone I've
talked to wants to offer like $5000 flat fee for a week of work they need done
(and we all know "a week of work" always turns into a month). Nothing long-
term and nothing very profitable, so I've turned everything down.

In all likelihood I'll be back on the job market soon.

~~~
eatplayrove
I mean, don't get me wrong, everyone makes mistakes, but you quitting cannot
be a financial decision right? To make 120k, you need 15k day*rates to go. At
75$ for your rate, that's 200 days. With ~260 actual available days to work,
you expect 77% efficiency? With the taxes, insurance and most importantly, the
presumed availability of work .. There is no way.

I have been doing consulting for a while and as an advice, I would take the
efficiency to be at most 50% so in OP's case would not accept less than
$115/hour to quit my $120k job.

~~~
daxfohl
No, I figured I'd be closer to 90% efficiency. Little did I know. Also I was
thinking I'd be able to bring on new clients at higher and higher rates, but
it hasn't worked out that way.

Haven't spent enough time looking for new work, and whenever I get a new
client it seems like my primary client suddenly has a big deluge of work that
I don't want to forfeit.

There were other "life" considerations as well, but I thought the financial
would be better than it is.

------
uniclaude
Before reading patio11: 75usd/hr

After reading patio11: 200 < x < 500

Then again, I don't only do software consulting, I ship (or fix, or optimize)
solutions on time to help my clients make way more than I cost them.

~~~
jtmcmc
what is patio11?

~~~
bdcravens
Patrick McKenzie, prolific HN user and developer/entrepreneur:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11)

------
tuckerwales
I'm a 21 year-old who has recently gotten into contracting to supplement my
primary income (a Software Engineering Apprentice for a Defence contractor).

I earn £12 an hour for my contract work, which I'm quite happy with at the
moment because 10 hours a week means I get an extra £500 per month (which is
considerable at my age, it pays my rent and bills and some).

I know it doesn't seem much, but I think I'm actually quite lucky to be able
to get a gig at my age with my experience.

~~~
qume
Great to hear you are happy, but I do think you're being exploited. I'm pretty
sure you can flip burgers for £12.

I hope this motivates you to ask for more.

~~~
tuckerwales
I'm a little hesitant to ask for more, because I'm really not in a position
right now (for a couple of months, anyway) to be able to afford losing that
extra income...

~~~
karmajunkie
I sympathize with that, but what you should also consider is that by greatly
undercharging the market rate, you're actually depressing wages for other in
your peer group.

~~~
fightfortheuser
and you'll just keep getting more low-end work. The next client you get,
double your rate, don't even bat an eye when you quote it, and you'll be
surprised when people say yes.

~~~
tuckerwales
Thanks for the advice guys.

------
keviv
I'm a full-stack developer and I was working full-time till last month and
freelanced occasionally. After leaving my job I decided to take up freelancing
and currently, I'm making $35 an hour working on CakePHP/Laravel/Angular
project which is low considering my experience (11 years). I usually charge
upwards of $50 but this time I made an exception because the company is
looking to raise Series A (which means more work at a better rate in future).

Last month, I got paid pretty good money for a React+Redux project.

Mail me at mail+efl@vivekgupta.com

I'm currently free for 20-30 hours a week and looking for more work.

~~~
fightfortheuser
I suggest you increase you triple your rates. Clients want good solutions to
their problems, and a low rate suggests that you do poor quality work.

And if you are good, (which it sounds like you are), the only reason why you
can't charge more is in your head. So charge more. Stop acting like some
first-year freelancer and start charging what you are worth.

~~~
keviv
Thanks! Got your point.

------
NicoJuicy
I freelance on .net projects for 70€ per hour, now I also doing e-commerce for
myself which gets me excited now.

Also busy with GPS webapplications on asp.Net mvc (embedded device who track
trucks and the refrigerator °), WordPress sites, NodeJS ( MVP's),,..

I have a Cordova app before I go to clients, currently landing on too much
work because of it ( it's a great conversation starter and builds trust). Will
up hourly rates soon, but have a lot of work the next months ( mostly creating
webshops for clients). I also work full-time.

My webshop currently lands me 500€/ month without marketing, it's something
totally different than full-stack development.

I also did something with Pokemon Go to learn how Facebook worked.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12858993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12858993)
i had the #2 fb page in Belgium. We did events to earn some money with it,
it's the #1 rated comment ;)

Currently notified all me clients that i will probably have some delay, but
nothing was planned for this month. I do put longer hours currently then i
want for now, just to make sure everything will land on time... ( 16 hours per
day at the moment, hope soon everything will be back to normal)

Also use a lot of jenkins and automation tools, i hate manual labor. My
collegues use 4 tools i wrote for myselve every day. It just takes off a hell
of time of lookup up usernames, passwords, phone numbers, logging hours, ... I
guess you only need to use it in a "ux friendly" enough way, but just don't
sink too much time creating it ;)

~~~
ddorian43
You'll kill/burnout yourself with 16 hours/day.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I hope it's only temporary, sunk too much time in Pokémon and my webshop ( got
in the news 5 times, so it all had to go fast -- webshop + pokémon events -
pokemon news - marketing - communication - following up/helping players).

I had a month delay on my projects because of it. The situation will improve
soon in a month or 2. I also have a stressfull job fulltime ( team leader +
.Net architect), but i can handle it. My dad had a more stressfull job then
what i have, so i don't mind this. At least i'm able to take a break when i
can. I just want it all finished on time.

Fyi, he was a veterinarian and sometimes worked 32 hours on a row. He's on his
pension now ( works a lot less). I'm happier that i can choose my own hours
and spend time with friends when i want.

~~~
Guest98123
> At least i'm able to take a break when i can. I just want it all finished on
> time.

If I learned anything working for myself the past decade, it's that you're
never finished. You need to set aside time for yourself and others today, and
every day.

------
throwawayNov07
I make $60/hour through an agency. I do this for 20 hours a week.

This is in addition to my full-time gig.

Assuming I'm booked eight months of the year, that's $38,400.

I could make more if I wasn't going through the agency, but for now, I don't
have a name or connections, and I don't have the time to market myself.

So I figure do the agency thing first, build a name, then start soliciting
direct clients. Then eventually ditch the full-time gig.

Honestly just stumbling through this.

~~~
johntash
What's the agency you go through, if you don't mind my asking?

~~~
throwawayNov07
It's a local one in Toronto; not one of the well-known ones online.

~~~
tharshan09
I am in Toronto. Would love to know the name, if you don't mind sharing.

~~~
akamaozu
Unlikely (s)he's interested in disclosing, judging by the throwaway name.

I'm in Toronto looking for agency work as well. It's been a while since I've
done some.

~~~
tharshan09
Oh I hope that's not the case. They were asking others for help, it would be a
shame if they were not willing to offer the same help to others.

------
siscia
My actual rate is 100 €/hr for developing work. I charge way less for skype
calls, tests, discussions.

I am deeply embedded inside the small company I consult for, it is extremely
nice because people trust me, are not in my way and are just looking for
results.

Really happy, however since I don't only bring coding experience but also
business acume I would definitely increase my rate to 150 €/hr .

People come to me with problems, I make sure they actually have that problem,
I listen to the solution they propose, I actually make my own proposal about
what should be done considering both business and technologies, we talk a bit,
more problem or constraints arise, we tweak a bit whichever proposal is better
and then I go ahead and I implement it.

Time spend talking between 10 and 30 minutes, client have its solution about
ready the day after. We are both happy.

~~~
ohashi
I wonder why you charge less for other kinds of work? It's still your brain
and time they are paying for.

------
cgil1210
What's the best way to start freelancing? A few years ago I used a few
freelance sites such as upwork but the pay was fairly low and the work was
just around building wordpress sites. Any recommendations? Specifically for
backend or fullstack projects?

~~~
theparanoid
There's interesting projects on Upwork. You just have to know how to search
for them, "Other - Software" is one.

------
pryelluw
It depends. I work with clients and their budgets. Leaving money on the table
doesn't bother me because I want long term relationships. For example, I'm
wrapping up a 2 year project this month. Built the MVP all the way to two
profitable product lines for the client. Super happy about it. I like to see
my clients succeed.

My focus is building solutions to business problems. I don't look at it as
software but solutions. When you approach it that way people are more
receptive to what you have to say.

I don't reveal amount earned but can't complain. I bill monthly, weekly or per
project and it works. Forget hourly. Either way, Im raising my rates for 2017.
Best of luck.

------
attaboyjon
I worked on top of my full time job doing web dev for Ad agencies, usually
php, asp.net or CMS work. Billed at $80/hr, probably netting 40-60k per year
on the side. I had always hoped it would lead me to a career as an
independent, but that rate is not enough to make a living with a family. I
eventually made it to being an independent, but I had to switch to doing
enterprise consulting in a niche market at a much higher rate.

~~~
fightfortheuser
So what did you end up niching in? Also, how did you bill for your services?

------
Arubis
I haven't freelanced in ~5 years, but while I was based overseas in a _very_
inexpensive living situation, I scraped by on $35/hour doing WP development
(urk...) and infrastructure work (now "devops", though we hadn't come up with
that moniker yet). I'm currently fulltime employed; if I were freelancing I'd
charge >5x that amount.

------
fgpwd
I am willing to work for 10$ an hour for full stack development (React/redux
and go or firebase, SQL, sometimes node), or Cordova app development, or
programming embedded devices (C or proprietary languages).

But no clients so far except for some friends who have promised to pay in the
future if their startup gets successful or gets funded :)

I have tried the usual freelance sites but no one really bids on me. The
reason is that I am from India and don't have much to show in terms of
projects/experience - my previous company had a very strict non disclosure
policy, and haven't worked on anything open source yet, don't have a blog,
etc.

I am not very serious though and more focussed on a project/"startup" of my
own but still looking for pocket money of 20-40$ a day to sustain myself
without having to do a job. I am trying at fiverr now. Somehow I just haven't
cracked the money nut yet.

~~~
Whitestrake
This may sound weird, but have you tried asking for more money instead of
less?

When I started out here in Australia I asked for very little, comparatively,
and got an equivalent amount of work. It wasn't until I asked for more than I
thought I was worth that people actually started hiring me.

~~~
fgpwd
I guess you are right, I should try quoting higher prices and see what happens
:)

------
ciaranbyrne
I earn about $150,000 for 50% of my time. The other 50% I spend on my own
projects.

~~~
nraynaud
that's a nice ratio, I hope I can get there.

------
naveensky
I charge USD 35/hr and offer full stack services for Java/Scala, AngularJS/JS
platforms. I have about 8 years of experience now.

I like to keep myself occupied for 6 hours on long term projects and keep 2-3
hours for short term projects. It helps me maintain my diversification across
clients.

I am a bit of tech nerd and offer discounts for exciting ideas based projects,
specially for startup. I think such projects are win-win for me as tech nerd
and client as low cost delivery.

Feel free to reach me out at naveensky(.at.)gmail(.dot.)com. I always keep
looking for new exciting projects :)

------
dver23
For a couple of longer term customers I charge $145/hr.

I'm working a full time gig now and haven't taken on any additional work in
ages, but depending on contract length I would start at $170 and up.

As I've seen posted here and elsewhere if you're experienced and charge less
than yearly salary/2080 * 3 you are giving money back.

(My wife worked as a buyer at one of the national labs and had to purchase
contractors, should used to have to tell them what to ask for because more
often than not it would be too low for her to quote them out.)

------
bloomca
Where do you get clients, if networking is not available for you? I mean, you
are not based in the US, so you can't meet these people.

I used to work a bit in Upwork (I am doing complex SPA in React/Redux, though
I can do it in other stacks as well), and charged 35–50$ (depend on a
project).

Also, my question is, how you raise the bar? Like, I know I can double my
rates and offer "solution" rather just code, but how you find such contracts
(people tend to not trust you there), and how do you present yourself?

------
ashnyc
I come from the other side. I hire programers for my side projects and i have
seen it all. As an entrepreneur the only thing i care about is that i have a
working software. Some programers think they should be paid a lot of money but
have very poor skills. If you are good at what you do, people will recognize
that and you will be paid a higher wage. Just be good at your job and
everything will workout.

~~~
Axsuul
Hey there, how can we connect? My email is in my profile

------
zackify
I generally charge 80/hr to do ReactJS / React Native work. I have been doing
this for the last 6 months on and off.

~~~
tedmiston
What part of the country are you in / are your customers in?

------
tanshul
I charge $30AUD an hour for freelance WordPress development. Billing monthly
an average of 8 hours ($240) for maintenance and support for an agency which
isn't much but nice extra income on the side and the occasional from scratch
projects (charges depending on requirement). Main job is a front end developer
(angularjs).

------
anguswithgusto
$100/hr, albeit writing about/for software, not writing the software itself.
Copywriting is a super great gig.

~~~
ss108
WAT

How did you swing that/who do you write for?

I have written an article for Sitepoint and have a couple in-progress pitches
with them and someone else, but I am not really motivated about it because the
per hour rate, after all the back-and-forth and work, ends up being like 20
bucks or less.

~~~
anguswithgusto
Took a lot of effort to build up the portfolio. I basically tried to avoid
content mills and focused my effort on clients I knew I could write a reliably
successful piece for (between 2k - 50k hits).

As you allude to though, the back-and-forth does dilute the rate quite a bit.
But it's still fun as hell.

------
ciaranbyrne
I earn approx $150K / year for 50% of my working time on client projects. The
rest I spend on my own projects

------
tedmiston
Do others working in this industry differentiate between freelancing (project-
based) vs independent contracting?

------
marpstar
I freelance _part-time_ in addition to my 9-5. Mostly doing WordPress sites,
with the occasional ASP.NET app for projects that need something totally
custom. Some other web/mobile work as well. I've been averaging $40k/year the
past 3 years in a row.

~~~
ff_
How many hours do you work on average per week on your freelance projects?

~~~
marpstar
It generally varies between 5 and 25 hours a week, depending on my workload.
I've been enjoying a small slump the past month or so where I've only logged
about 10 hours total, but more projects are in the hopper and are in the
design stage now.

------
du_bing
I do web development for $25/hour, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and some basic things
on server, Apache, MySQL, Python. I'm in China, so it's good for me. If you
have any project needs help, feel free to contact me, tarvos21 at gmail.com

------
bdcravens
Don't really freelance anymore, but when I did, $75/hour (mostly in Rails and
ColdFusion) was typical. I do some mentoring (codementor.io) at $80-120/hour
(they take 20%). (My rates would be higher if it was my fulltime gig)

------
kovrik
I am doing Java (mostly), 10 years of experience, in New Zealand (not much
work to do here, unfortunately), 80-100 NZD per hour.

I'm currently free for about 20-30 hours per week, looking for more work.

Feel free to contact me: kovrik0 at gmail.com

~~~
bdcravens
Keep in mind that on the 1st of each month there's an HN post where it's
kosher to advertise your freelance services.

------
richardwardza
PHP/Node/Phonegap Development in South Africa - R600/hour (about $50) for
local customers, $70/hour for US based and 50 euro/hour for European based
customers. I think I need to up my rates.

~~~
NicoJuicy
If you have solution for background GPS updates on Cordova, shoot me a mail ;)
( without the popular component which cost a lot for what it is

------
dzlobin
$125-175/hr for contract iOS development in NYC.

------
nraynaud
I earned a bit less than €10k since August 3rd with French clients (I'm still
ramping up my prices).

------
up_and_up
Hourly? Yearly? Fulltime? Part-time?

~~~
ruler88
all of the above?

~~~
paxcoder
I think they're evading the question.

------
tn_
I usually charge $100/hr for native mobile development on the side.

