Hi Chris, Starting a programming project first means you have to find a customer and talk with them about their needs. Some customers will pay you for this but in general these kinds of negotiations are done free of charge, unless they are taking a long while. When the customer has made their wishes clear, you have to check internally to see if you and your team can do it with the resources that are available for you. And generate a list of things you will need in addition to what you already have. You then return to the customer and start discussing more seriously about how to continue. In general, you will charge them about one or two days of work but in return will provide them a well-documented overview of what you can create and what you will need to do this project. You will also have to estimate the amount of time you will need to do this project. Remember to generate clear, but non-technical documentation for your customer. Preferably, print it by using a color printer and also print a nice hardcover and send it to the client nicely bound. Multiple copies would even be more appreciated. This is an expensive step, of course, since you're probably have more than two days work on this documentation. It might even take you a week to get it all nicely done, but the better-looking this documentation is, the more likely the customer will accept it when you tell him it will take a long time to develop this project. About the estimated time... Try to estimate how much time your project will take and double (!) this time when you first mention it to the customer. Then go down by 25% in the final estimation, so you have some time available in case you encounter some unexpected delays. (For example, your system might crash, someone might get sick, whatever...) By including this additional delay time you don't have to tell the client that things are going to be delayed because <fill in excuse>. Keep in mind that you will charge the customer for all the hours that it did take you to finish. Say you planned 100 hours but told the client it would take you up to 150 days. For whatever reason, you manage to do it in 90 days... Your client will then be happy if you tell him you'll only charge him for 90 days or he has an additional 60 free days if he pays you the full amount for some additional enhancements. Many clients will then be quite happy to ask for more enhancements or ask for more features. It gets them "addicted" to you, because if you manage to finish things within the agreed time, they get some additional "free" time for the next projects, which has some positive effects on their budgets. Don't charge them for 150 days and do 60 days of nothing if it only took you 90 days! They will go somewhere else if they discover this!
Now, prices will vary from $25 per hour for a simple developer doing simple things to $250 per hour for a well-experienced developer who can produce at high speeds. But asking $250 per hour will often let you end up with clients laughing at you in the face while they start calling for a more serious developer... Yet at times you can get away with this if the customer is familiar with you, when he knows you're real good and when you basically just don't have time for him because you're working for someone else at that moment. Then this amount could be used to compensate for delaying the other project, ot just allows you to hire someone else to help you with it all. Also, the amount you can ask also depends on the average wages of the people around you. I've done some freelance work as a student and earned $100 per hour with it. Had to pay taxes and some other expenses so in the end I ended up with $5000 for about 100 hours of freelance work. Used that money to buy some new clothes and a newer version of Delphi. (Delphi 2005 to be precise.) And the rest is in a savings account to support my studies. I got that job because I was helping out another freelance developer. He was busy on some project but the company really needed something to be done, and done fast. He charged them the double amount and then hired me. I did the work, he then checked it first and then gave it to the customer.And the customer was real happy. Oh, the customer was aware that he was "outcourcing" it. They just relied on him knowing a very experienced person who could do it. :) With kind regards, X Katja Bergman. --- In [email protected], "Chris @ IT" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi All, > > This might be a bit out of topic but i think its a crutial for the survuval > of us all (programmers) > > How do you cost a programming project? Is it per hour? i take it a > professional programmer can cost his work at about $25 an hour or close then > use a utility like coderush to calculate the number of total programming > hours; Is it by system features and challenges? Programming isnt really a > scalar measurable thing so ive always had this problem when a client comes > to me and asks "how much will it cost?", especially when you cannot factor > in things like popularity, marketing etc; Just a client who wants something > specific. > > ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated... > > Thanks, > > Chris. ----------------------------------------------------- Home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/delphi-en/ To unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/delphi-en/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
