I've been doing freelance work full-time for the last year and a half, and I have learned a lot about running a freelance business and I wish someone would have been up front about it with me before I got into it—so, here goes.
I have not worked worked in a corporate environment so I really can't say if I'm Jr. / Mid / Senior. I've been using PHP / MySQL since 2004. I did freelance development part-time from 2009 - 2015, then full-time in July 2016 to present. I've mostly done Laravel / Angular, but am moving to Laravel / Vue. The wage thing is something I worked at for quite some time trying to figure out. I started out charging $30/hr because I had nothing to base the wage off and I honestly thought the wage would break down like a normal W-2 job. I also had not run a business on my own so I really didn't know what I was doing (the previous part-time freelance I had a partner who handled the business end). I didn't really figure in the cost of running the business. So it broke down like this: Billed Wage $30.00 / hr Hours 38.08 Total Pay $1,142.40 Retirement $68.54 Insurance $118.75 Federal Income Tax $146.71 Affordable Care Act $4.98 Federal Health Insurance Deduction $13.90 Federal Insurance Contributions Act $59.45 Utah State Income Tax $44.91 Reserve Pay $78.90 Operating Costs $20.00 Net Pay $586.26 Net Wage / hr $15.40 Net % of Gross 51.32% That is an actual one-week pay period for me the end of 2016. - Being self-employed you have to pay your income tax *and* your corporate tax. I decided to get an accountant because trying to read / understand all the tax laws was time consuming and nearly impossible for me. I just wanted a number, but the IRS and Utah State Tax Commission don't provide a clear answer. :( - My insurance was through Liberty HealthShare <https://www.libertyhealthshare.org/>. It wasn't the best insurance, but it was cheap at $475 / mo for my family of 4. It was a cash up front then get reimbursed by the insurance plan. - Reserve pay is money saved for vacation and holiday pay. 2.63 hr / week. That was 80 hours vacation and 40 hours paid holiday. I learned the hard way that if you don't save for vacation, you don't get any. xD - Operating costs $60 / month included (I overspent / under estimated this category in 2016) - Quickbooks Online $15.00 / mo - Accountant Costs $250 / yr - GitHub $7.00 / mo - G-Suite $20.00 / mo - Trello $5 / mo - Toggl $10 / mo - PHPStorm $99 / yr (first year) then $199 / yr - hosting $65 / yr - Google Cloud Platform ≈$5 / mo - Misc ≈$15 / mo (includes books, WordPress themes, Laracasts, udemy, etc.) - $220 / yr travel - Business Licensing, state $15 / yr, city $110 / yr ($110 is *very* high) I would recommend not basing your wage off what you think customers will pay, but based on your personal and business needs. I worked backwards to get my current rate: Target Salary $80,000.00 Monthly $6,666.67 Weekly $1,538.46 Daily $307.69 Hourly $38.46 Billed Wage $30.00 / hr $50.00 / hr $75.00 / hr $100.00 / hr $120.00 / hr Hours 38.08 38.08 38.08 38.08 38.08 Total Pay $1,142.40 $1,904.00 $2,856.00 $3,808.00 $4,569.60 Retirement $68.54 $114.24 $171.36 $228.48 $274.18 Insurance $118.75 $118.75 $118.75 $118.75 $118.75 Federal Income Tax $146.71 $289.79 $435.44 $581.10 $697.62 Affordable Care Act $4.98 $4.98 $4.98 $4.98 $4.98 Federal Health Insurance Deduction $13.90 $27.46 $41.27 $55.07 $66.11 Federal Insurance Contributions Act $59.45 $117.43 $176.45 $235.48 $282.70 Utah State Income Tax $44.91 $94.70 $142.30 $189.90 $227.98 Reserve Pay $78.90 $131.50 $197.25 $263.00 $315.60 Operating Costs $35.00 $35.00 $35.00 $35.00 $35.00 Net Pay $571.26 $970.15 $1,533.20 $2,096.24 $2,546.68 Net Wage / hr $15.00 $25.48 $40.26 $55.05 $66.88 Net % of Gross 50.01% 50.95% 53.68% 55.05% 55.73% So to meet the $38.46 / hour I decided I needed to average $75 / hr billed to the customer. Depending on the project my rate will vary, but as long as I average $75 it seems fine. Some customers will just not be happy seeing a price like that, others are totally fine with it. When it comes to quoting projects, I've found I'm terrible at it. I apparently have no concept of time. So I started doubling what I *think* it will take and adding 10%. What I've found doing this is it starts conversations with the customer. They become a bit more vested in the project because they see the big price tag and it gives you a chance to really talk about what they want and refine the estimate and ultimately become more involved. It is really hard developing something with an ambiguous vision and a small budget. The biggest thing though is understanding how much time you will actually be coding. I assumed I would be spending like 90-100% of my time developing, but it's probably more like 60-70%. I spend a lot of time talking to and meeting with customers, invoicing, bank reconciliations, asking customers to pay their bills, finding new customers, attending business conferences, meeting with marketers, etc. And none of that time is billable, so this is just on top of the 40+ hours of development time needed to meet my desired income requirements. As for where to find clients, there are lots of resources: - Word of mouth (awesome once word gets around, not so good when first starting) - Business to Business conferences - Sit at a booth and hand out business cards and talk to other business owners - Your local Chamber of Commerce - Chambers end up being very click-ish. If you join many of the other members may come to you for support - Marketers - They are working with people who are (or want to be) online. The customers seem to understand the need for a developer, whether it is developing a website or a web application. - Your local SBDC <https://utahsbdc.org/> - They work with small business locally. One downside is that most of these are startups and they don't always have funds and may default on payments. :\ - Y Combinator <https://news.ycombinator.com/> - It's a bunch of tech start ups and they are looking for help Sorry if this was a bit of a ramble. Hopefully some of it is helpful. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I've loved doing freelance work. It's hard and stressful, but I find it to be worth it. On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 2:41 PM Frank <le...@therightperson.me> wrote: > Well I don't know anything I provide to the mailing list gets moderated. I > guess I am blacklisted. > > Frank Yingst > > -----Original Message----- > From: uphpu-boun...@uphpu.org [mailto:uphpu-boun...@uphpu.org] On Behalf > Of > Patrick Curl > Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2017 14:34 > To: UPHPU General Discussion > Subject: [UPHPU] General Inqury: How much is an Intermediate PHP/Laravel > Freelancer worth hourly? > > I just got off working for a corporate contract that lasted about 15 > months. > > I liked the 40 hours/week but was only paid $30 an hour. I'm wanting to get > into freelancing for the flexibility and hoping I can fit in some side > projects between working on client work. > > Lately I've been going for and in some cases getting 40-50/hour. Though, if > I quote 15 hours and go over I have just been eating the extra hour or two. > > I definitely have imposter syndrome like most devs, but I do feel more > confident after working the long gig on a team of 10 devs using scrum/git > every day. > > My question: What level (Jr / Intermediate / Senior) do you feel you fall > into, and what do you feel is a decent freelancer wage per hour? Any tips > or > suggestions on freelancing in general to improve my business? Also where do > you find clients - reddit has been my best lead source so far. > > Thanks for participating. > Patrick Curl > http://patrickcurl.com/resume > > _______________________________________________ > > UPHPU mailing list > UPHPU@uphpu.org > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > > > _______________________________________________ > > UPHPU mailing list > UPHPU@uphpu.org > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > _______________________________________________ UPHPU mailing list UPHPU@uphpu.org http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net
