Ask HN: Pricing question for a 'moonlighting project' for a company

[dthakur]

I've been approached by a mid-size company looking to develop something similar to a shareware project I have available out there.

How does one go about valuing this kind of work?

The project is supposed to take 4-6 weeks to complete. The project is C++ development in a specific field (Wifi). I'm leveraging my existing code (say 50%) to build their product.

Some thoughts and pointers would be great.

[byoung2]

Price it based on the value to them, not on how many hours it takes you to create. If it means they can cut costs by $5000 per month, price based on that. A good example is hotel reservation/booking systems. It only takes a few days to integrate one into a website and tie it with the hotel's in-house system, but you wouldn't charge them a few hundred dollars. Instead, you charge them a percentage of every booking, because it means fewer calls to their reservation line (= money saved).

[michael_dorfman]

Lots of variables:

Who owns the rights to the product when you're done? You or them? That should be a factor in the pricing, of course.

Do you have a clear spec? (If the answer is no, get one or make one.)

How confident are you in your time-estimate of 4-6 weeks? Do you feel comfortable taking the risk (i.e., doing it for a fixed price), or do you want to push the risk to them (i.e., work on it at an agreed-upon hourly rate, for however long it takes)?

[dthakur → michael_dorfman]

Thanks for the input.

It is their product and I'll incorporate this info into the pricing factors, thanks.

I have somewhat of a spec but it needs more review before it can be considered a serious set of requirements.

Time-estimate is fine. I'd rather do it for a fixed price -- the company did agree to have a term structure for compensation 15% at start, 15% at first milestone etc.