This all seems reasonable. Its more or less the metric I would use too. It will probably sound daunting to a private client though. If you want to break into doing this on a regular basis. You might want to charge considerably less especially as you said it was your first private work.
Its in your own intrest to provide value for money untill you have a decient client base. This depends on how likely prospective clients are to talk to each other. Regards, Wes On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Alan Rother <[email protected]> wrote: > "Fair" is a complicated subject. > When figuring out what you should charge for something you should look at a > number of factors: > > > - What is your time worth to you? > - This can be measured by any number of personal measuring sticks. > How much free time do you generally have available, how interesting does > this project look to you, do you think you can re-use this code for > anything > ever, will you achieve some level of personal / professional > satisfaction > from it. > - Personally, if I don't have a lot of extra free time, or if the > project looks to be a pain, I charge considerably more. If that kills > the > project, so be it, if not, WOOHOO! > - As for calculating an actual billable rate, one way to figure out > what your professional time is worth is to take your annual salary at work, > divide it by 2000 and that very roughly what you make an hour. I typically > double it to cover taxes and then charge that. So for example you earn > $50,000 a year at your main job, you basically earn $25 an hour, So a good > starting point for charging for your time is $50 an hour. Using the "How > much do I like this project" scale, you can then adjust that rate > accordingly. If the project is going to be a pain, bump it up, if it's > going > to be fun maybe lower it. > - What can the person afford to pay? > - This is one of the hardest parts of any job, you may come up with > what is a reasonable amount to do the job, but the client may choke. > Great > sales people have a sixth sense for the threshold a client has for a job > ($$$). With one off freelance jobs it can be hard to guess what a > person has > available to spend. I've been offered projects where the client wants to > build a competitor to eBay and has about $500 to spend... > - Depending on your relationship with this client, you might just > want to ask what they have available to spend on the project upfront. > Then > go back and determine if it's enough for you to get it done. > > HTH > > =] > > -- > Alan Rother > Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Developer > Manager, Phoenix Cold Fusion User Group, AZCFUG.org > > > >
