

Insights into the 2013 iOS Developer Survey - RickDT
http://bigswing.com/blog/2013/7/2/insights-into-the-2013-ios-developer-survey

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wolframarnold
You guys are asking some interesting questions in particular about whether
people feel they charge too much or not enough. The best expose on that I've
seen is in Gerald Weinberg's "Secrets of Consulting"
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0932633013/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0932633013/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1372779848&sr=8-1&pi=SL75)

It's a question that's both externally determined, e.g. "What does the market
bear?" and also based on someone's own perception of their worth. It's hard to
disentangle the two but very important in order to maximize revenue. What's
more the objective question of what the market will bear is often colored by
my own perception, which is a recipe to leaving money on the table.

Weinberg's advice is to set your rate such that you'd feel emotionally neutral
whether or not you get the gig. If you over price (by your own feeling, not by
what the market says) and you get the gig, you'll be stressed to deliver at
what you think that price level should be worth in labor. If you under price
(by your own standard, perhaps because you think the market will not accept
more) then you'll be resentful for working below what you're worth. Having
been a consultant myself, I can only advise everybody to challenge the own
perception of what the market will bear.

~~~
RickDT
Fantastic point on challenging your own perceptions of the value of an hour,
the market, etc. We really hope this survey (and subsequent ones that we plan
to do) gives people an additional data point to consider.

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Phlarp
These "feel" low to me. For context I'm a freelancer doing mostly front end
web work based in MN and comfortably charging 50-60 with relatively little
experience (~18 months, three of which were an internship with a creative
firm). My intuition would have previously been that iOS devs; being both more
supply constrained and needing more technical depth in skills (webdevs can get
away with just knowing how to string up wordpress instances. I'm not aware of
anything similar in the objective C world) would command much more leverage.

On the top end, I would hope these "rockstar" teams are charging 250/hr per
developer?

I like to think I'm at the very bottom of the totem pole with plenty of room
to climb higher and increase my revenue over a long career to come; seeing
things like this make think I'm rapidly approaching a pretty hard cap.

~~~
RickDT
Especially comparing the average rates to proficiency and locale, I was
surprised. I would expect Journeymen and Master to be charging more than
$100/hr on average. Same with people in tech-heavy areas.

But, our data may be skewed this year just due to our reach. We didn't have
many people from companies in the range of 20-100 people which I think is a
sweet spot for high specialization.

------
bennyg
I think it'd be cool to see more visualizations of that data. What percentage
was around the median and mean? What percentage of people charged under
$50/hr?

~~~
tankbot
Indeed, very little substance here. They couldn't even be bothered to indicate
the time interval their "rate" applies to. One assumes hours, but it's not
stated anywhere on the page. $93/hour? Day? Week? Project?

~~~
RickDT
Point taken, but if you look at the results page (linked in the post), it's a
lot more clear: [http://bigswing.com/ios-rates-2013](http://bigswing.com/ios-
rates-2013)

~~~
tankbot
Ah, thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for.

The heavier font weight didn't register and I completely missed the links in
the body of the text. Maybe they need to be set off more, or maybe I just need
more coffee :)

------
pjungwir
Interesting that "innocent"s charge more than "exposed"s or "apprentices." I
wonder if these are senior developers making a transition into iOS.

~~~
RickDT
I hadn't considered the transitioners. That's a good point. The other way to
look at it is that they don't know how bad they are yet :) When you first
start to learn something, you feel like you know everything until you get that
first smack down!

------
10dpd
\- Note this is a self-reported survey where people are likely to overstate
their earnings in order to impress peers.

\- Additionally there isn't enough supporting data, e.g. no where is the rate
of time defined in the article. I'd be interested to see the original survey
to see if this is clearly mentioned here.

\- Can someone point to one clear unambiguous place where an iOS developer
position is advertised at over $100 per hour?

~~~
RickDT
\- The survey was anonymous (unless you signed up to get the results). And, I
don't think anyone is trying to impress us ;)

\- The data clearly shows that this is per hour (see the data here:
[http://bigswing.com/ios-rates-2013](http://bigswing.com/ios-rates-2013), per
the post). You can also view an archived copy of the survey here:
[http://bigswing.com/ios-rate-survey-2013-archive/](http://bigswing.com/ios-
rate-survey-2013-archive/) It poses the question: "If you do have an hourly
rate, what is it on average?"

\- The point of doing this survey was that rates are rarely, if ever, actually
posted. There are a lot of reasons for that, but it also makes hard to know if
you're in line with your industry. Hence, the survey!

Your critiques and questions seem to imply that you don't think our findings
are valid. Is that true or am I reading too much into it? ~$100/hour USD is
right in line with our experience for an average across the whole industry.
It's low for an agency or big firm and high for a young freelancer.

------
joshdance
How did you get the survey out? Was it via your email list or Twitter HN etc?
Survey methods can dramatically change your results.

~~~
RickDT
All of the above. We posted here on HN, on Twitter, our blog, and we emailed
some people that we knew would want to participate.

------
rfnslyr
I'm in the wrong goddamn business. Time to look at mobile development!

~~~
bennyg
For other people, maybe. The market's starting to get flooded with mobile devs
I believe - and making a hit on your own is just non calculable for potential
profit.

~~~
MisterWebz
What kind of profit are we talking about? I'd be content with 2k revenue a
month.

~~~
potatolicious
Mobile app profitability isn't linear, or even close to linear - you're either
rolling in the dough or you're not even making ramen money.

Discoverability is a huge problem, if you're not in a featuring, a top-X list,
or something of the sort, your profitability is extremely limited. If there's
no visibility on the App Store for you, you don't get _fewer_ users, you get
_almost no_ users.

$2K sustaining revenue a month isn't impossible, but it's hard.

~~~
ryandrake
From this discussion, it sounds like it's potentially very profitable to be a
consultant MAKING apps for other companies, but, except for very rare cases,
the apps themselves are not profitable.

~~~
RickDT
We may do a follow-up survey to attempt to confirm our assumption that the
vast majority of people that make money from apps are doing so by invoicing
clients, rather than selling apps in the store(s).

