Ask HN: Am I right to ask for a raise?

[kypro]

I'm 30 years old, primarily a full-stack web developer, but I've done some AI and app development too.

I'm a contractor and I've been working on a project for the last few months with a client. This project is potentially worth millions to my client and could quite easily revolutionise their business.

It's also technically very challenging. For perspective it took another company 6 years of research and £3,000,000 to achieve something similar.

Initially we asked a small tech company to build a prototype for £60,000 but they failed to deliver anything of value.

However, over the last few months of obsessive research and development I have managed to single handedly create the entire solution myself and I am trying to decide whether I should be asking for more money to continue my work. I'm on £400 a day, but that is less than 3 times what they would have been paying the aforementioned tech company for the same work.

Were I to leave now they would struggle to continue development and would probably have to scrap the project. The tech here is extremely niche making it almost impossible to replace me at this point.

How should I play this? And am I being unreasonable to ask for more? I genuinely want them to succeed and don't want to be difficult, but I also feel like I'm being short-changed.

[photawe]

I would not ask for a raise right now. How I would phrase this is is more like : "I do believe I'm worth more, and assuming everything goes well, in the long term, I would like to be payed more/get part of the business".

This way, if/when they succeed, you'll succeed too.

[staticautomatic]

Do not ask for more money. It would seem (or be, depending on your perspective) extortionate, since you'd essentially be holding the solution hostage that you agreed to build for a more or less agreed upon price.

Instead I would ask for a performance bonus or something, perhaps contingent upon your ability to deliver it quickly, among other things.

[herendin2]

You sound considerate and a little unconfident about money negotiations, which makes me think you're probably the kind of person who is paid less than your work deserves.

Make sure they understand the value of your work.

Think about how you will feel, and what you will do, if your raise is denied