<div>Hi,</div> <div> Sometimes I look at the users profile to get an idea of where they are located. Even if they don't say, the time zone often gives me a clue. We're in GMT -5, west coast is -8, England 0, etc...(assuming that they have the correct zone
listed in the profile). BRN..</div>
<div>Hi,</div> <div> It had never occurred to me that discussing hourly rates by individuals who number in the hundreds of thousands world wide, could ever be considered to be conspiring in some global price fixing scheme. I'm not saying you aren't correct,
just that it's so absurd that only a collusion of lawyers could have proposed it! Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.</div> <div> Thanks for the info and link. BRN.. </div>
My rate is charged while I'm working for the client. In some cases I need to do a little bit of personal research to find an answer to a problem. If the problem is something I should know the answer to, I may not bill them for that, it's my own fault for
forgetting what to do. But if it's only pertinent to their situation, and I need a creative solution, I count the minutes it might take to post a question or research a solution online. There is not a single person alive who can do this work from memory, so
researching the best methods to do something is certainly included in the bill.
Writing code is pretty trivial.. syntax you can learn from hitting F1. It's the code and the structures you choose for a given situation that separates the pros from the amateurs. So charging the client to research this makes sense.
<div>Hi, thanks for the info.</div> <div> </div> <div> I'm guessing that a lot of people charge an hourly rate, even though they don't feel it's a good metric of value. Perhaps it's that we who provide a service or product, and customers that pay for them,
have the idea of hourly rates so ingrained in our expectations that it's hard to break that pattern. Have you tried a set fee approach? Did you find that customers would pay $50 per hour for a project that took 100 hours, but would balk at paying $5000 for
the same thing, if they didn't know how long it would take?</div> <div> I appreciate the information you, and others are providing - and I'm certainly not trying to instigate a price fixing scheme. The hour rate that people charge is less important to
me than how they negotiate the value of what they provide, and try to see it from both the provider's and the customer's perspective. BRN..</div>
I currently have a contract I estimated to be 2 weeks of work (and what I get paid will be this amount, no matter what), so if I go faster, it's my profit. If I go slower, then the client wins.
Just ask the client what they are more comfortable with. If the client can't afford asp.net, they chould consider sticking with a static html site for starters, then add automated pages to their site later. Most automated sites pay themselves off pretty
fast.. imagine how many employees it would take to monitor and paste html to this site if it wasnt automated! A full time html coder is easily $45,000/yr.. so if this site runs 10 years with 1 less html programmer, its worth half a million dollars to the client.
<div>Hi, thanks again.</div> <div> I appreciate your passing along some of what you've learned about providing such a service. You mentioned one way that you can provide value to a client: by creating an automated site that will save the client a somewhat
predictable amount in maintenance costs. Do you find that many of your clients are aware of the potential savings, or do you have to point that out to them? Also, do you use the estimated savings to them to establish the cost of your service (proposal for
your contract), or do you just estimate the time it will take (in hours), and apply the rate you feel your skill set will support in your area?</div> <div> In a similar vein, how do you respond to clients when they wish to compare what they can expect from
your custom service to what they could expect from a template website they might expect to be able to produce themselves (using website creation software, or website creation features of an office suite). Do you find yourself competing with companies marketing
all-in-one website registration/hosting/site creation, for a set fee?</div> <div> Thanks again for the information you provided, and good luck with your projects. BRN..</div>
Some people understand the benefits of ASP.net, some don't. Some will hire you when they don't really need that much automation, and some will not despite the brutally obvious fact that they'd benefit from it.
My advice to you is to seek work via every possible means, friends, job postings, or even contact some select companies directly. You can use templates, or not, depends on how good the templates are. I find most open source to be far from perfect, and needs
work to be made bullet-proof. Many companies are very computer illiterate, and beware of empowering them to do work on their own. In many cases, you're better off managing every aspect of a project just so they don't do something dumb. I know people who paid
$50 for domain names just to save me time without consulting with me first.[:S] Thats 6 times more than most registrars I deal with!
There's many things like this to watch out for.. good luck, hope you get some work soon.
Hi,
Thanks for the extra observations. If you don't mind me asking, do you get a lot of call back, repeat customers wanting additional work done on the same or new projects? Do you generally find that your customers are satisfied when you give them what they
asked for, or are they often not sure of what they want in the first place? BRN..
Writing code is pretty trivial.. syntax you can learn from hitting F1. It's the code and the structures you choose for a given situation that separates the pros from the amateurs.
Brent
Very well put Brent, I agree totally.
http://www.sqldatalayer.com Script your Stored Procedures and class objects necessary for your .net application. Accelerating your development time, creating a consistant easily maintained class object Library.
Brian27
Contributor
2296 Points
527 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
Apr 29, 2005 04:30 PM|LINK
Brian27
Contributor
2296 Points
527 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
Apr 29, 2005 06:11 PM|LINK
big_jim_mcbo...
Participant
1245 Points
249 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 01, 2005 08:25 PM|LINK
My rate is charged while I'm working for the client. In some cases I need to do a little bit of personal research to find an answer to a problem. If the problem is something I should know the answer to, I may not bill them for that, it's my own fault for forgetting what to do. But if it's only pertinent to their situation, and I need a creative solution, I count the minutes it might take to post a question or research a solution online. There is not a single person alive who can do this work from memory, so researching the best methods to do something is certainly included in the bill.
Writing code is pretty trivial.. syntax you can learn from hitting F1. It's the code and the structures you choose for a given situation that separates the pros from the amateurs. So charging the client to research this makes sense.
Brent
Brian27
Contributor
2296 Points
527 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 02, 2005 07:02 AM|LINK
big_jim_mcbo...
Participant
1245 Points
249 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 04, 2005 10:09 PM|LINK
I currently have a contract I estimated to be 2 weeks of work (and what I get paid will be this amount, no matter what), so if I go faster, it's my profit. If I go slower, then the client wins.
Just ask the client what they are more comfortable with. If the client can't afford asp.net, they chould consider sticking with a static html site for starters, then add automated pages to their site later. Most automated sites pay themselves off pretty fast.. imagine how many employees it would take to monitor and paste html to this site if it wasnt automated! A full time html coder is easily $45,000/yr.. so if this site runs 10 years with 1 less html programmer, its worth half a million dollars to the client.
Brian27
Contributor
2296 Points
527 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 05, 2005 03:20 PM|LINK
big_jim_mcbo...
Participant
1245 Points
249 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 08, 2005 08:24 AM|LINK
Some people understand the benefits of ASP.net, some don't. Some will hire you when they don't really need that much automation, and some will not despite the brutally obvious fact that they'd benefit from it.
My advice to you is to seek work via every possible means, friends, job postings, or even contact some select companies directly. You can use templates, or not, depends on how good the templates are. I find most open source to be far from perfect, and needs work to be made bullet-proof. Many companies are very computer illiterate, and beware of empowering them to do work on their own. In many cases, you're better off managing every aspect of a project just so they don't do something dumb. I know people who paid $50 for domain names just to save me time without consulting with me first.[:S] Thats 6 times more than most registrars I deal with!
There's many things like this to watch out for.. good luck, hope you get some work soon.
Brent
Brian27
Contributor
2296 Points
527 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 10, 2005 03:19 AM|LINK
Thanks for the extra observations. If you don't mind me asking, do you get a lot of call back, repeat customers wanting additional work done on the same or new projects? Do you generally find that your customers are satisfied when you give them what they asked for, or are they often not sure of what they want in the first place? BRN..
jtn916
Participant
826 Points
188 Posts
Re: Suggested Contract Rate
May 11, 2005 05:11 PM|LINK
Very well put Brent, I agree totally.
Script your Stored Procedures and class objects necessary for your .net application. Accelerating your development time, creating a consistant easily maintained class object Library.