Ask HN: Freelancer Rates in the US
100 comments
You will not find a standard range of freelancer rates, just as you won't find a standard range of developer salaries in the United States.
The $20-30/hr job listing you shared will not attract any experienced Python developers. Experienced Python developers can easily secure jobs with $100K+/year salaries and benefits in any medium sized city. That job listing is searching for entry-level Python engineers who don't yet understand their value in the marketplace. It is not representative of standard freelance rates. The job listing requests a good command of the English language, so it's not even clear that they're targeting only Americans with the listing.
Generally speaking, the best paid freelancers do not find jobs via public job listings. They use their reputation and network in combination with their unique skillsets to find contract jobs with companies who need them.
The best freelancers also negotiate their rates for each contract. Their rate can vary significantly depending on how many other opportunities that have, the difficulty of the work, and other factors.
Personally, I don't know any full-time freelancers who charge less than $80-90/hr. Below this hourly amount, it becomes more financially beneficial to find a full-time job.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to find accurate information about freelance rates from the public internet. Smart companies will not post a high hourly rate on job listings because they could miss opportunities for candidates to negotiate lower rates. Smart freelancers will not advertise their typical rate because it will impact their opportunity to negotiate or change their rates in private conversations with new employers.
The optimal strategy is to constantly look for new contract jobs, raising your asking rate until companies are telling you "No" more than "Yes". This is how you will find your market rate.
The $20-30/hr job listing you shared will not attract any experienced Python developers. Experienced Python developers can easily secure jobs with $100K+/year salaries and benefits in any medium sized city. That job listing is searching for entry-level Python engineers who don't yet understand their value in the marketplace. It is not representative of standard freelance rates. The job listing requests a good command of the English language, so it's not even clear that they're targeting only Americans with the listing.
Generally speaking, the best paid freelancers do not find jobs via public job listings. They use their reputation and network in combination with their unique skillsets to find contract jobs with companies who need them.
The best freelancers also negotiate their rates for each contract. Their rate can vary significantly depending on how many other opportunities that have, the difficulty of the work, and other factors.
Personally, I don't know any full-time freelancers who charge less than $80-90/hr. Below this hourly amount, it becomes more financially beneficial to find a full-time job.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to find accurate information about freelance rates from the public internet. Smart companies will not post a high hourly rate on job listings because they could miss opportunities for candidates to negotiate lower rates. Smart freelancers will not advertise their typical rate because it will impact their opportunity to negotiate or change their rates in private conversations with new employers.
The optimal strategy is to constantly look for new contract jobs, raising your asking rate until companies are telling you "No" more than "Yes". This is how you will find your market rate.
But that also means that these advertisements won't find any good developers. These super-low rates are clearly trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
The best bet is that these ads are aiming at developers from poorer countries where rates are much lower.
The best bet is that these ads are aiming at developers from poorer countries where rates are much lower.
I’m happy with the point that this listing might cater to people in Eastern Europe/Asia/Africa
On the one hand, yes, but on the other, if it's remote anyway, developers in Eastern Europe/Asia/Africa should also be able to earn Western European/American rates.
There company page says they're located in Russia
https://soshace.com/company/soshace
https://soshace.com/company/soshace
Well said. As someone who's been contracting full time for over a decade, I have never used a public job listing to find a gig (nor would I). Not only are the rates low, they are usually non-negotiable. I've always gotten my gigs via my network and word-of-mouth.
As you said, it allows negotiation in rate, and when you come recommended you already have a leg up on negotiation. After a while you tend to figure out what you're able to charge, and its highly dependent on the client.
Public companies, and especially startups will pay a higher rate. I tend to get around ~125/hr in my MCOL Midwest city (highest has been 150/hr at a startup). That's about where the limit is for me in my location.
Private companies tend to be more stingy. I normally can get ~110/hr out of them. I will never take less than 100/hr, and never have. When your network is big enough you don't need to take every gig and can say no if you don't like the terms. I have to turn down more gigs than I take as it is because I'm so booked up with work.
I would also add that rates are certainly location dependent. On the coasts I would expect a higher rate than I get in the Midwest just because of cost of living. Certain cities also are more accepting to contractors than others (mine is). All of this will have an impact on what kind of rates and gigs you can get.
As you said, it allows negotiation in rate, and when you come recommended you already have a leg up on negotiation. After a while you tend to figure out what you're able to charge, and its highly dependent on the client.
Public companies, and especially startups will pay a higher rate. I tend to get around ~125/hr in my MCOL Midwest city (highest has been 150/hr at a startup). That's about where the limit is for me in my location.
Private companies tend to be more stingy. I normally can get ~110/hr out of them. I will never take less than 100/hr, and never have. When your network is big enough you don't need to take every gig and can say no if you don't like the terms. I have to turn down more gigs than I take as it is because I'm so booked up with work.
I would also add that rates are certainly location dependent. On the coasts I would expect a higher rate than I get in the Midwest just because of cost of living. Certain cities also are more accepting to contractors than others (mine is). All of this will have an impact on what kind of rates and gigs you can get.
Very good points. May I know what is the niche you are involved...e.g FullStack, Datascience, Ruby etc?
Almost all of the contractors that I've worked with have used recruiters to help them find most of their B2C contracts.
Like anything else you can find all ranges offered and all ranges accepted.
I thought the exact opposite was the norm, with higher rates in US companies than UK/europe.
Senior level rates in US range from 100-300/hr. I know it's a big range, but it comes down to speed, creativity, references, portfolio, fit for the project, availability.
As far as the half the money as a 9-5, it's actually the other way around-- as a freelancer, you need more money to compensate for things like insurance, taxes, risk that come with being an independent/freelancer. So they say to match a 75k salary, you need approximately 150/hr.
Senior level rates in US range from 100-300/hr. I know it's a big range, but it comes down to speed, creativity, references, portfolio, fit for the project, availability.
As far as the half the money as a 9-5, it's actually the other way around-- as a freelancer, you need more money to compensate for things like insurance, taxes, risk that come with being an independent/freelancer. So they say to match a 75k salary, you need approximately 150/hr.
Here is a calculator I built a while ago when I was freelancing. It won't be perfect but will give you a close idea of what an equivalent day rate should be for freelancer compared to a full time salary.
https://codegeek1001.github.io/salary2consultantcalc/
https://codegeek1001.github.io/salary2consultantcalc/
What “they say” is 75/hr, salary divided by 1000. I’m guessing you doubly applied the 2x factor.
May I ask how the calculation works? For $75/hr (to take California as an example) you have ~$105k after tax; subtract ~$5k for insurance and you're left with $100k. Whereas for $75k/year you're left with $56k/year after tax. Meaning that when you're on salary, you're pocketing 56% of the money you would as a freelancer. The only way I can make sense of this is if it's freelancers expect to bill around 25h/week... is that normal? And what happens if you have a job where both sides actually expect you're going to bill the full 40h? Is it normal for people to lower their rates in that case, or do they still base it on the 25h?
Your assuming that the freelancer is billing out 2000/year. That's not usual. Some freelancers can, but many cannot. The risk of long periods of downtime are bundled into that rate. Other expenses can be legal, own equipment, development, training, own office, etc. It depends on the freelancer's situation; you might wind up putting a lot of money back into the business. In that case, $75/hour is not really very much in the US.
I see, thanks!
Medical insurance is more like $1,600+/month for a married couple, even more if you have kids. That's ~$20k/year which brings you down to $85k after tax.
And did you factor-in having to pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare? I believe that's another 15.3% [0]
[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/se...
And did you factor-in having to pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare? I believe that's another 15.3% [0]
[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/se...
I just used this actually; I presume they included both halves of Medicare & Social Security: https://www.irscalculators.com/tax-calculator
I was assuming single/young (so low-cost insurance), I wasn't really thinking of family/children but that's a good point!
I was assuming single/young (so low-cost insurance), I wasn't really thinking of family/children but that's a good point!
[deleted]
150/hr sums up to 200k/year if you work 30 hours a week for 11 months.
-----
Fixed typo
Tl;dr: I charge a fair amount (effectively well into $three digits/hr) and making what I have previously at a w2 is a real fight.
Presuming you meant $150/hr: indeed, and if you’re freelancing, you almost certainly don’t have that high a proportion of billable time. Prospecting, marketing, deliberate learning, and other overhead are all necessary parts of the deal and can easily take half your available time. I tend to do all that in downtime between contracts, so it’ll look like 25-35 billable hours per week but with maybe 25-30 weeks/year utilization. Others just overlap everything; works well with longer contracts.
Presuming you meant $150/hr: indeed, and if you’re freelancing, you almost certainly don’t have that high a proportion of billable time. Prospecting, marketing, deliberate learning, and other overhead are all necessary parts of the deal and can easily take half your available time. I tend to do all that in downtime between contracts, so it’ll look like 25-35 billable hours per week but with maybe 25-30 weeks/year utilization. Others just overlap everything; works well with longer contracts.
I'm wondering if it's also not heavily dependent on the business structure that you set up for yourself, as a freelancer. It's a one-man company (for the most successful), a self-employed job (for the majority, or so I hear). The former eventually makes "products", while the latter may entertain a permanent rat race, wheel spin.
Difference in point: how much of what you do leads to higher value at fixed cost (notably in time, how long does it take you to deliver), or same value for lower cost (same idea).
I'd wager that, for the one-man company mindset, you tend to think not task but process, automating progressively etc. (need-to-basis optimization, ad hoc 'frameworks' that speed up your particular niche projects, heck just taking work from client A and refactoring it for client B and building an informal "product" eventually from there, that's the story of all freelancers who've been at it for 5+ years as I see it)
How much of the past work (self and tooling improvements) is factored in present value? Can we decorrelate X years of history of a company and estimate its cost/value production simply YOY? I think not. I think the greatest (companies, freelancers) incrementally raise the bar— making the threshold for competition much too high for a newcomer, hence commanding much higher value.
[At the highest end of that spectrum, meet Apple. Even tech giants struggle to meet that bar, whatever goes in it (tech genius? marketing? craftsmanship? whatever. $ at the end of the day)]
Doing the [work hours × $rate × utilization] equation only says so much about what actually goes into your rate (years of being more efficient at "it", those things you do).
Say you begin at $75 in the US after a ramp up of 3-6 months to establish yourself on the market. You survive for 2 years like that, reach ~$100. You realize it's only $50 real, and your newfound expertise is priced higher in the salary job market. So you either raise your rates or go get that money elsewhere. That's why IMHO an "expert freelancer" market only makes sense north of $100-150 in the US (adapt numbers for any country, minus perhaps the "tech not sexy" effect e.g. in Europe where it's not better paid that other intellectual activities).
Right now, you are worth much more than whatever you did this year, and presumably (hopefully for market sanity) it shows in how much you earn.
Difference in point: how much of what you do leads to higher value at fixed cost (notably in time, how long does it take you to deliver), or same value for lower cost (same idea).
I'd wager that, for the one-man company mindset, you tend to think not task but process, automating progressively etc. (need-to-basis optimization, ad hoc 'frameworks' that speed up your particular niche projects, heck just taking work from client A and refactoring it for client B and building an informal "product" eventually from there, that's the story of all freelancers who've been at it for 5+ years as I see it)
How much of the past work (self and tooling improvements) is factored in present value? Can we decorrelate X years of history of a company and estimate its cost/value production simply YOY? I think not. I think the greatest (companies, freelancers) incrementally raise the bar— making the threshold for competition much too high for a newcomer, hence commanding much higher value.
[At the highest end of that spectrum, meet Apple. Even tech giants struggle to meet that bar, whatever goes in it (tech genius? marketing? craftsmanship? whatever. $ at the end of the day)]
Doing the [work hours × $rate × utilization] equation only says so much about what actually goes into your rate (years of being more efficient at "it", those things you do).
Say you begin at $75 in the US after a ramp up of 3-6 months to establish yourself on the market. You survive for 2 years like that, reach ~$100. You realize it's only $50 real, and your newfound expertise is priced higher in the salary job market. So you either raise your rates or go get that money elsewhere. That's why IMHO an "expert freelancer" market only makes sense north of $100-150 in the US (adapt numbers for any country, minus perhaps the "tech not sexy" effect e.g. in Europe where it's not better paid that other intellectual activities).
Right now, you are worth much more than whatever you did this year, and presumably (hopefully for market sanity) it shows in how much you earn.
I'm constitutionally incapable of not commenting on threads like this :)
So, yes, your description is accurate, though putting scare-quotes around "products" is necessary here. As folks grow in this profession, as I see it, there's three paths to success without ending up back in a W2:
* make _actual_ products (which is my own eventual goal), or
* find a way to productize their service (re-usable code blocks or processes, customized per client at a very high effective rate), or
* get really good at prospecting new contracts and end up hiring more individual contributors, eventually building an agency.
Of course, you could potentially mix and match, and service productiziation is a good step on the way to building products.
What's most in-common across those three options is that none of them reward you, the freelancer with aspirations towards growth, for billing by the hour. And I think that plays directly into your point of task vs. process: for a _task_ you'll need to consider _how long it will take, while for a _process_ your primary concern is _what it will achieve_.
So all this discussion of hourly rates is actually presupposing an arrangement that runs counter to the best interests of everyone involved--including, frankly, those of your client, because it incentivizes you to take as long as possible to deliver your work product. IMHO once you've crossed the line of "I am making enough money to not think about money when buying a non-special meal", it's time to think about your billing structure, even if you end up losing money short-term. Otherwise you really are signing up to use a very high-value skillset to live paycheck-to-paycheck.
(My prior description of my hourly rate is hand-wavey for two reasons: first, this, that I tend not to charge hourly--and second, that no freelancer in the process of frequently hitting their rates with a multiplier benefits from making a hard rate commitment in public.)
Another comment in this discussion described freelance senior software engineer rates as running $100-300/hr. I believe that, and higher--on an _effective_ basis. But I'd wager the higher end of that scale is day-, week-, or fixed-bid rates.
On a personal note: a lot of the struggle/low utilization on my end owes to having a baby in the home. A W2 keeps paying you the same when you don't sleep for six months, but that has real consequences when you have to find your own customers!
So, yes, your description is accurate, though putting scare-quotes around "products" is necessary here. As folks grow in this profession, as I see it, there's three paths to success without ending up back in a W2:
* make _actual_ products (which is my own eventual goal), or
* find a way to productize their service (re-usable code blocks or processes, customized per client at a very high effective rate), or
* get really good at prospecting new contracts and end up hiring more individual contributors, eventually building an agency.
Of course, you could potentially mix and match, and service productiziation is a good step on the way to building products.
What's most in-common across those three options is that none of them reward you, the freelancer with aspirations towards growth, for billing by the hour. And I think that plays directly into your point of task vs. process: for a _task_ you'll need to consider _how long it will take, while for a _process_ your primary concern is _what it will achieve_.
So all this discussion of hourly rates is actually presupposing an arrangement that runs counter to the best interests of everyone involved--including, frankly, those of your client, because it incentivizes you to take as long as possible to deliver your work product. IMHO once you've crossed the line of "I am making enough money to not think about money when buying a non-special meal", it's time to think about your billing structure, even if you end up losing money short-term. Otherwise you really are signing up to use a very high-value skillset to live paycheck-to-paycheck.
(My prior description of my hourly rate is hand-wavey for two reasons: first, this, that I tend not to charge hourly--and second, that no freelancer in the process of frequently hitting their rates with a multiplier benefits from making a hard rate commitment in public.)
Another comment in this discussion described freelance senior software engineer rates as running $100-300/hr. I believe that, and higher--on an _effective_ basis. But I'd wager the higher end of that scale is day-, week-, or fixed-bid rates.
On a personal note: a lot of the struggle/low utilization on my end owes to having a baby in the home. A W2 keeps paying you the same when you don't sleep for six months, but that has real consequences when you have to find your own customers!
> find a way to productize their service (re-usable code blocks or processes, customized per client at a very high effective rate), or
Anecdote incoming:
One of my short-term roommates was a programmer who did mostly SCADA-type stuff. He'd previously had a gig working for a utility contractor designing water/plumbing control systems, but for unrelated political reasons the project died he was able to retain the code (no idea if that was legal or permitted... but he had it). Flash forward to when I was living with him and he was doing freelancing work for a few counties and their related utilities, essentially implementing the same code for new clients. He eventually admitted he was only doing 30-40% new code, and mostly reviewing the existing systems.
Didn't seem to lack for work though, and had a few stacked clients / contracts going at once. Don't know his hourly rate but I'd assume he was going for at least $50/hr.
Anecdote incoming:
One of my short-term roommates was a programmer who did mostly SCADA-type stuff. He'd previously had a gig working for a utility contractor designing water/plumbing control systems, but for unrelated political reasons the project died he was able to retain the code (no idea if that was legal or permitted... but he had it). Flash forward to when I was living with him and he was doing freelancing work for a few counties and their related utilities, essentially implementing the same code for new clients. He eventually admitted he was only doing 30-40% new code, and mostly reviewing the existing systems.
Didn't seem to lack for work though, and had a few stacked clients / contracts going at once. Don't know his hourly rate but I'd assume he was going for at least $50/hr.
Thanks so much for this detailed perspective. Taking notes. ;)
I totally see the counter-productivity in hourly billing. It's never sat well with me. In the end, clients want a final number more than some estimation of time × some price per period. It's just not cognitively the same to drop a final, single number (with conditions, a tight contract is also a benefit to both parties because nobody likes surprises).
There's also this argument about "price for the value it has for your client, not for the cost of your work". Which makes sense in a bubble but like most pop philosophy I feel it ignores that you're not alone selling the service, and agreeing to keep prices artificially high is generally called racket by most ethics, if not laws. (half-jokingly saying this, light-hearted but there is abuse in some domains)
The matter of the fact is nobody likes, again, paying twice the real cost of something for no good reason (today it's you billing, tomorrow it's you paying for accounting or legal or your freaking dental and car bills). There's a slippery slope there that I'm not willing to contribute to. I think it's just not sustainable, in this model businesses are soulless and die like crabs in a basket, and the customer + taxpayer (all of us, all of them) looses the most.
If I'm gonna bill high, it has to be because the work is genuinely harder or better, and I'm very much factoring "past years" in the how/why. It's hard to put in words, even between us technicals, let alone client profiles. It comes down to a scarcity fact: not many people can do it as well, and that's the price in dollar of the time of this small subset.
And indeed I don't think it's "$300 per hour" (that value is computed after the fact, it's a statistic!) It's one deliverable, reduced to a single number (from which you derive the others e.g. time frames, support cost, price of additional features, etc.)
It should basically be whatever a bigger business could earn selling the same product/service, minus overhead¹ and shareholder profits²— all for you, times some scarcity factor. If an employee makes an average $100K making it, we can see a freelancer making about twice as much for the same work (a factor of say 1.25 to 3-ish, this from my a#%, armchair intuition / business angle).
In actual geographical market forces, I see a lot more money going to whoever's established as one of the go-to's than an economist's account of what should be. Reality checks and all that. You need to know X, Y and Z (people, competition, client aggregator...) and go from there. Online is a bit more "opened", but far less than people would think. In a given niche, many people know many people. No niche = low multiplier factor (because low margin for all businesses, includng you), and low bonus (because low barrier of entry usually means less valuation as a market relatively to others).
Best advice I've ever heard: go to business consulting meetups and talks. These people totally understand that you come in with a skillset to offer services, that's the spirit. These people give the single most trusted recommendations, that's their actual job!
____
1: you also lose the larger skillset covered by a business team, I think overhead is actually worse for a freelancer if you don't outsource as much as possible (everything that's not your domain, may be better served, more efficiently too, by a professional of that domain).
Tangential but, this is my problem with all the pop-culture around entrepreneurship telling you to learn it all as if improvising ever was a good long-term strategy...
Recruiting solid, reliable, trustable suppliers; creating a synergy of behind-the-curtain business deals; these are much more valuable skills for sustainable success if you ask me. Learn to play with others, combine strengths and values.
2: this is where domain value plays in, e.g. bonus value for a freelancer in fancy biotech versus common web / mobile views.
I totally see the counter-productivity in hourly billing. It's never sat well with me. In the end, clients want a final number more than some estimation of time × some price per period. It's just not cognitively the same to drop a final, single number (with conditions, a tight contract is also a benefit to both parties because nobody likes surprises).
There's also this argument about "price for the value it has for your client, not for the cost of your work". Which makes sense in a bubble but like most pop philosophy I feel it ignores that you're not alone selling the service, and agreeing to keep prices artificially high is generally called racket by most ethics, if not laws. (half-jokingly saying this, light-hearted but there is abuse in some domains)
The matter of the fact is nobody likes, again, paying twice the real cost of something for no good reason (today it's you billing, tomorrow it's you paying for accounting or legal or your freaking dental and car bills). There's a slippery slope there that I'm not willing to contribute to. I think it's just not sustainable, in this model businesses are soulless and die like crabs in a basket, and the customer + taxpayer (all of us, all of them) looses the most.
If I'm gonna bill high, it has to be because the work is genuinely harder or better, and I'm very much factoring "past years" in the how/why. It's hard to put in words, even between us technicals, let alone client profiles. It comes down to a scarcity fact: not many people can do it as well, and that's the price in dollar of the time of this small subset.
And indeed I don't think it's "$300 per hour" (that value is computed after the fact, it's a statistic!) It's one deliverable, reduced to a single number (from which you derive the others e.g. time frames, support cost, price of additional features, etc.)
It should basically be whatever a bigger business could earn selling the same product/service, minus overhead¹ and shareholder profits²— all for you, times some scarcity factor. If an employee makes an average $100K making it, we can see a freelancer making about twice as much for the same work (a factor of say 1.25 to 3-ish, this from my a#%, armchair intuition / business angle).
In actual geographical market forces, I see a lot more money going to whoever's established as one of the go-to's than an economist's account of what should be. Reality checks and all that. You need to know X, Y and Z (people, competition, client aggregator...) and go from there. Online is a bit more "opened", but far less than people would think. In a given niche, many people know many people. No niche = low multiplier factor (because low margin for all businesses, includng you), and low bonus (because low barrier of entry usually means less valuation as a market relatively to others).
Best advice I've ever heard: go to business consulting meetups and talks. These people totally understand that you come in with a skillset to offer services, that's the spirit. These people give the single most trusted recommendations, that's their actual job!
____
1: you also lose the larger skillset covered by a business team, I think overhead is actually worse for a freelancer if you don't outsource as much as possible (everything that's not your domain, may be better served, more efficiently too, by a professional of that domain).
Tangential but, this is my problem with all the pop-culture around entrepreneurship telling you to learn it all as if improvising ever was a good long-term strategy...
Recruiting solid, reliable, trustable suppliers; creating a synergy of behind-the-curtain business deals; these are much more valuable skills for sustainable success if you ask me. Learn to play with others, combine strengths and values.
2: this is where domain value plays in, e.g. bonus value for a freelancer in fancy biotech versus common web / mobile views.
Assuming you meant 150/hr...
Freelancers have costs that W2 employees do not, like self employment taxes and the full cost of health insurance.
Freelancers have costs that W2 employees do not, like self employment taxes and the full cost of health insurance.
They also have benefits that W2 employees do not, like deducting expenses, $50k+ in allowable retirement contributions per year, and the 20% QBI deduction.
You are certainly correct, and those are nice to have.
It pays to keep in mind that in order to deduct an expense, you have to pay the expense. So as a freelancer, when I pay for my computer, that's $1500 out of pocket. Then I don't pay quite so much in taxes. But I've still got $1500 less at the end of the year than if I worked at a business and they were paying for my computer.
$50K+ into your retirement is also great, but it's most useful for those who are making so much money that they can afford to put that money away and not touch it until they're 62. Some people can certainly do that, but I doubt that it's very common. Even FTE often don't max out their 401K. Here's a fool article that claims the average is rate is 7%: https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/15/average-americans...
It pays to keep in mind that in order to deduct an expense, you have to pay the expense. So as a freelancer, when I pay for my computer, that's $1500 out of pocket. Then I don't pay quite so much in taxes. But I've still got $1500 less at the end of the year than if I worked at a business and they were paying for my computer.
$50K+ into your retirement is also great, but it's most useful for those who are making so much money that they can afford to put that money away and not touch it until they're 62. Some people can certainly do that, but I doubt that it's very common. Even FTE often don't max out their 401K. Here's a fool article that claims the average is rate is 7%: https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/15/average-americans...
You would also then have a $1500 asset that you could sell at a later date. When you're an employee you don't have that option.
If you aren't able to max out your retirement account it means your QBI deduction is larger.
As with most things business/tax related, there's a lot of grey area and nuance here.
If you aren't able to max out your retirement account it means your QBI deduction is larger.
As with most things business/tax related, there's a lot of grey area and nuance here.
> You would also then have a $1500 asset that you could sell at a later date. When you're an employee you don't have that option.
Maybe if you turned around and resold the system immediately. But I'm not gonna pay 1500 bucks for your 4 year old 133t machine that you spilled coffee and sneezed on.
Maybe if you turned around and resold the system immediately. But I'm not gonna pay 1500 bucks for your 4 year old 133t machine that you spilled coffee and sneezed on.
Of course. That’s why depreciation and MACRS exists. The point is it’s not a $1500 sunk cost. You get a multi year deduction and an asset in return. How you handle that asset is up to you.
Fixed typo, thanks. A good percentage of those costs is tax deductible along with expenses you will not have the luxary to deduct as an employee.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Mistake: it should be "150/hr" instead of "15/hr"
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
15 * 30 * 4 * 12 = 21600
[deleted]
[deleted]
When I started freelancing, I did extremely cheap jobs because I didn't have experience and didn't know better. I did what you are currently doing, I went online to find answers. And the answer is, there are no fixed rate. The rate you are seeing, is perfectly reasonable for someone who charges this rate.
At some point, my fee was $40 an hour. I freelanced through a 3rd party who found gigs for me, and took their cuts. One day, I found out that they charged these companies $100 in some cases, while I was still only getting $40.
If that's how much I was worth, then it would be perfectly reasonable for me to charge just as much.
If you want more details, here is the full story: https://idiallo.com/blog/how-much-do-you-charge-for-your-wor...
At some point, my fee was $40 an hour. I freelanced through a 3rd party who found gigs for me, and took their cuts. One day, I found out that they charged these companies $100 in some cases, while I was still only getting $40.
If that's how much I was worth, then it would be perfectly reasonable for me to charge just as much.
If you want more details, here is the full story: https://idiallo.com/blog/how-much-do-you-charge-for-your-wor...
Such a good post of a great lesson learned. I see a lot on how zoning in how much to charge, a lot on how to get customers but do you have similar posts about the other stuff on the biz end of things that fill the gaps? Creating proper contracts are daunting
Glad you enjoy it. The business end of things was a messy beginning for me. My contracts started as googling a template the night before and sending it with as many typos as mistakes you can imagine. It improved over the years.
I haven't written about it yet, but I'll add it to my list for this year.
I haven't written about it yet, but I'll add it to my list for this year.
Excellent post. Thanks for sharing. As a rookie software engineer, this is very interesting for me to read as I myself want to eventually transition to freelance work.
Like someone else said, the agency is Russian. From their "about" page:
https://soshace.com/aboutus
197183, Russia, Saint-Petersburg, Polevaya Sabirovskaya street, 54А, office 335
197183, Russia, Saint-Petersburg, Polevaya Sabirovskaya street, 54А, office 335
Oh wow that evaded me.
Expected? Yes. Normal? Yes. Only thing there is out there? No.
For every $30/hr posting on the net, there is another one for $100. I also personally know of folks who are making +$150 with Django. It really depends on who you work for.
Although you will see a lot more of `build Uber for $5K` type of one off jobs, there are some reputable companies who need more capacity on new projects.
If I were you I would cast a wider net and sample the market more.
For every $30/hr posting on the net, there is another one for $100. I also personally know of folks who are making +$150 with Django. It really depends on who you work for.
Although you will see a lot more of `build Uber for $5K` type of one off jobs, there are some reputable companies who need more capacity on new projects.
If I were you I would cast a wider net and sample the market more.
Who pays >150? I always hear about this but neither as freelancer or as employee who hires freelancers I have ever seen somebody making that much as freelancer. Sometimes consulting companies charge that much but the freelancers probably get paid only a fraction of that.
Industries where money comes in by the bucket have no problem spending it with a shovel for specialized knowledge they don't have.
If you're a contractor, your best bet is to focus on an industry to understand the needs of that industry better. Rather being a Python developer, you can be a contractor who builds usable solutions that happen to use Python.
Industry knowledge, referrals, good prior work and marketing are important. These $150/hr jobs won't fall into your lap unless you put an effort to position your lap that way :)
If you're a contractor, your best bet is to focus on an industry to understand the needs of that industry better. Rather being a Python developer, you can be a contractor who builds usable solutions that happen to use Python.
Industry knowledge, referrals, good prior work and marketing are important. These $150/hr jobs won't fall into your lap unless you put an effort to position your lap that way :)
Real estate, finance, oil & gas, software development clients. I charge $160/h. 20+ years of experience.
I have a buddy who charges $200/h for JavaScript work in Oil & Gas. He works on-site, wears a suit, and makes bank in a cheap city. Never has issues getting work.
Normal start-ups (i.e. not Valley Bubble) and small shops are almost never able to pay that much, but medium and large clients will easily pay that rate for established senior engineers WITH REPUTATIONS.
As much as we like to think technology is a meritocracy, at the end of the day, it always comes down to who you know. The charitable interpretation of that fact is that there aren't a lot of ways to gauge reputation, so it's mostly about who can vouch for you.
Source: I co-founded a software and design consultancy co-op (https://www.fountstudio.com/about).
As much as we like to think technology is a meritocracy, at the end of the day, it always comes down to who you know. The charitable interpretation of that fact is that there aren't a lot of ways to gauge reputation, so it's mostly about who can vouch for you.
Source: I co-founded a software and design consultancy co-op (https://www.fountstudio.com/about).
when I get my own clients directly, and I'm closer to that. When I'm subcontracted through someone else, it's typically < $100 ($70-$90). I consciously make that trade off sometimes because I'm effectively outsourcing some of the risk - negotiations, collections, etc. And it's sometimes got me in to projects on teams whereas I'd normally be an independent, and the dynamics and range of engagements I've had has been a bit wider because of it. The $120/hr+ engagements I've had tended to be shorter engagements - (< 6 months). The subcontract ones tend to be longer. While I know if I'm getting $80, the people selling me are getting $110 or more, again, I understand they're providing some service that I didn't particularly want to do (or... negotiated for a 9 month engagement, for example).
These numbers are more in line with what I have been and am still seeing.
Where are you?
In NYC and SF, you'd never fill your contract if you were trying to pay < 150.
In NYC and SF, you'd never fill your contract if you were trying to pay < 150.
I was freelancer in Maryland and then worked at a company in LA.
When I was freelancing (mostly Swiss companies) in the end 180$/hour was my starting point for negotations.
For bigger multi month projects i would come down quite a bit, but for small ones i wouldn't budge.
Its not something you can pull off when new to freelancing and more importantly don't have connections / referrals.
Its a comparable price to what small agencies charge (or charged, haven't been working/living in Switzerland in years).
For bigger multi month projects i would come down quite a bit, but for small ones i wouldn't budge.
Its not something you can pull off when new to freelancing and more importantly don't have connections / referrals.
Its a comparable price to what small agencies charge (or charged, haven't been working/living in Switzerland in years).
If you have a name you can charge exorbitant rates for anything, and large companies will pay it. IAmTimCorey is somewhat of a YouTube celebrity with millions of views on pretty basic (but extremely well-made, all-around excellent) videos. His advertised consulting rate is $300/hr. To your second point, Oracle bills its consultants at $400/hr or more, and they're probably making $200-250k.
Most likely desperate very short term one off contracts.
Almost meaningless to talk about hourly rate without also providing the length of the contract.
Almost meaningless to talk about hourly rate without also providing the length of the contract.
Someone paying not just for a dev but a dev with significant domain knowledge in a niche area.
How much does somebody in this kind of field in the US pay in taxes? As for me (Germany) I have to basically give away half, such a posting would pay me basically like a very entry position after taxes.
In the US you would pay roughly 35% to 40% in taxes. However (in general), expenses incurred in the course of your business would not be taxable.
For example, if you earned $150,000 as a contractor, but you incurred $30,000 in expenses then you would have $120,000 in potentially taxable income.
The tax code is very, very complex, though, and there isn't a simple answer to this question. There are a vast array of factors that would shift how much you pay in tax up or down, and this complexity is heavily exploited by lots of folks.
For example, if you earned $150,000 as a contractor, but you incurred $30,000 in expenses then you would have $120,000 in potentially taxable income.
The tax code is very, very complex, though, and there isn't a simple answer to this question. There are a vast array of factors that would shift how much you pay in tax up or down, and this complexity is heavily exploited by lots of folks.
I would include health insurance premiums in the US as a tax when comparing to other developed countries since they don’t have to pay those. Easily $5k/per family member per year plus $28k available in case of emergencies due to out of pocket maximums and $10k to $15k per family member per year if you’re 45+.
I think if you do that it becomes really hard to compare a lot of things.
So health insurance is a cost ... albeit not the same for everyone, at some companies you pay surprisingly little and that is compensation ON TOP OF your pay...
Other places not.
It's really hard to get good 1:1 comparisons.
Taxes and etc in the US are widely unevenly applied depending on the situation compared to what seem to be 'more' standardized and predictable numbers, services, in Europe.
So health insurance is a cost ... albeit not the same for everyone, at some companies you pay surprisingly little and that is compensation ON TOP OF your pay...
Other places not.
It's really hard to get good 1:1 comparisons.
Taxes and etc in the US are widely unevenly applied depending on the situation compared to what seem to be 'more' standardized and predictable numbers, services, in Europe.
This topic is concerning freelancer income, so it doesn’t involve an employer paying for a portion of an employee’s health insurance premiums.
It’s also very easy to compare even if you are an employee, as health insurance premiums are shown in box 12 code DD of an employee’s W-2. And health insurance premiums don’t vary that much between healthcare.gov and ACA complaint insurance that employers subsidize.
What is clear is that there exists a healthcare expense in life, and so if you are paying for it via taxes in one region, you would have to figure out how much it costs in the other region where it’s not included in taxes to make the comparison more accurate.
You can use this table from the state of NJ to reasonably guess how much healthcare will cost you in a moderately high CoL area in the US:
https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...
It’s also very easy to compare even if you are an employee, as health insurance premiums are shown in box 12 code DD of an employee’s W-2. And health insurance premiums don’t vary that much between healthcare.gov and ACA complaint insurance that employers subsidize.
What is clear is that there exists a healthcare expense in life, and so if you are paying for it via taxes in one region, you would have to figure out how much it costs in the other region where it’s not included in taxes to make the comparison more accurate.
You can use this table from the state of NJ to reasonably guess how much healthcare will cost you in a moderately high CoL area in the US:
https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...
Valid point, I lost track of the freelancer situation.
As for the differing costs of insurance outside of the freelancer world, I've found the costs in the US can vary wildly. Those tax boxes aren't the only way / shouldn't be the only comparison for US healthcare costs.
As for the differing costs of insurance outside of the freelancer world, I've found the costs in the US can vary wildly. Those tax boxes aren't the only way / shouldn't be the only comparison for US healthcare costs.
I don’t understand why they can’t be used to reasonably estimate healthcare costs. ACA compliant plans are pretty standardized, as well as the metal levels indicating expected healthcare costs.
Some plans will cover some providers and some won’t, and rural areas will have issues with even having providers at all, but for most major urban/suburban regions, it should be comparable, +/- 10%, even 20%.
Either way, you know that healthcare costs are in the thousands and $10k+ per year per family, which is a lower bound you can add to calculating US tax rates.
Some plans will cover some providers and some won’t, and rural areas will have issues with even having providers at all, but for most major urban/suburban regions, it should be comparable, +/- 10%, even 20%.
Either way, you know that healthcare costs are in the thousands and $10k+ per year per family, which is a lower bound you can add to calculating US tax rates.
Keep in mind that contractors can put up to $57k per year into a retirement account and can deduct 20% of income from the QBI deduction which will drastically reduce your taxable income.
Earned around $130k in consulting last year. After deductions/expenses, US federal taxes were around $8k. Now.. FICA was something else (which I can't remember offhand), and state tax was something like $3k. Federal/state taxes where ~$11k. health insurance - that was around $10k.
As a Dutch freelancer, my marginal tax rate is a bit over 50%, but I think I've got way too many tax breaks and deductibles compared to regular employees. I'm not going to complain if they decide to cat some of those back a bit (thoug I'm sure other freelancers will).
fwiw my current billing rate is $300/hr. Full stack. Mostly web. 18+ years of experience. San Francisco. Clients all over the Bay Area.
Got any spill-over you'd like to get rid of? Experienced freelancer/consultant here, no hand-holding necessary.
Sorry, no.
Is that a high rate in SF? Can you bill a full month of it (160 hours) or are larger jobs at a different rate?
Frankly, I don't know if it's a good rate. I shoot for 80% utilization of my time. If I get busier than that, I raise my rate. So that's the simple algorithm that got me to $300/hr now. I don't think I'd want higher utilization than 80% anyway. You need time to do bizdev etc.
I used to kill myself with 60 hour weeks a long time ago though. That wasn't smart.
I've never had to lower my rate. There were lean periods where I was "between projects" for a couple of months. I just considered this a much needed time off to catch up on my reading list.
I used to kill myself with 60 hour weeks a long time ago though. That wasn't smart.
I've never had to lower my rate. There were lean periods where I was "between projects" for a couple of months. I just considered this a much needed time off to catch up on my reading list.
Given the high salaries in sf for software development, your rate sounds reasonable.
Working only remotely? afaik face-to-face interaction is highly valued in Bay Area.
I meet the clients f2f a lot at the beginning of the project. Then I'm off to just writing code at home until it's time to deliver the project. It's just the nature of the projects I've taken on. I'm sure there are other kinds of software consulting where you need to meet them everyday, go to their standups and things like that. Fortunately, I've avoided that. I've developed a reputation for "going off and getting it done". That's the brand. So people don't expect constant meetings.
Cheesy title notwithstanding, I found this book to be useful: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260218.Million_Dollar_Co...
Cheesy title notwithstanding, I found this book to be useful: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/260218.Million_Dollar_Co...
So, if you can answer this question, which kind of projects do you work with mostly?
Backoffice projects? Actually working on their main project? Maintenance of legacy systems?
Or basically, what kind of projects companies put contractors on as opposed to their employees/founders?
Backoffice projects? Actually working on their main project? Maintenance of legacy systems?
Or basically, what kind of projects companies put contractors on as opposed to their employees/founders?
If they could hire someone full-time to do it, they would, I think. I say this because every single company I've consulted for has tried to pressure me into coming on full-time. I always politely decline, but it is exhausting sometimes. I remind myself that I'm fortunate and that I should be grateful for the opportunities.
Either they can't hire fast enough, or they can't have the employees deliver fast enough.
Anyway, I don't know if there's a clear pattern.
Let me just list a few examples:
1. Large company. New CTO wanted a proof-of-concept. Big company with slow teams and processes. He got me to build it fast, and demoed it to the board, and got the leadership team excited.
2. Startup. CTO and the 3 engineers were mobile devs. They were raising their next round and wanted a web version of their product. Ended up building a full product that got them much bigger traction than they expected.
3. Startup. CEO and the investors thought that the team needed to focus on X. CTO thought that Y will actually get them product-market-fit. CTO asked me to build Y, and the CEO agreed, to preserve optionality. Turns out the CTO was right.
Either they can't hire fast enough, or they can't have the employees deliver fast enough.
Anyway, I don't know if there's a clear pattern.
Let me just list a few examples:
1. Large company. New CTO wanted a proof-of-concept. Big company with slow teams and processes. He got me to build it fast, and demoed it to the board, and got the leadership team excited.
2. Startup. CTO and the 3 engineers were mobile devs. They were raising their next round and wanted a web version of their product. Ended up building a full product that got them much bigger traction than they expected.
3. Startup. CEO and the investors thought that the team needed to focus on X. CTO thought that Y will actually get them product-market-fit. CTO asked me to build Y, and the CEO agreed, to preserve optionality. Turns out the CTO was right.
Part of the reason you can get stuff done fast is precisely because you're not part of the company. The 'you should come work here full time' scenarios almost never seem to really get that point. The moment you come on 'full time', their perception of you changes, expectations of you change, and you're rarely likely to deliver what you could because of these changes.
Exactly! It reminds me of https://local.theonion.com/girlfriend-changes-man-into-someo... I'm tempted to send them that link, but so far I haven't ;-)
How do you find freelance opportunities in the Bay Area?
To simplify it, it's been:
1. Talk to people and sound like you know what you're talking about. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it's been "be opinionated, and be able to back up the opinions when challenged".
2. They mention opportunity for equity. You mention you only work for money. Sometimes they take you up on it.
3. Do a great job. They brag about you. This gets you more clients. But don't count on that. Ask for referrals.
4. Increase your rate as your utilization goes up.
1. Talk to people and sound like you know what you're talking about. In my (admittedly limited) experience, it's been "be opinionated, and be able to back up the opinions when challenged".
2. They mention opportunity for equity. You mention you only work for money. Sometimes they take you up on it.
3. Do a great job. They brag about you. This gets you more clients. But don't count on that. Ask for referrals.
4. Increase your rate as your utilization goes up.
> That would mean a freelancer makes less than half the money as compared to a 9-5
I think as a general rule, if you're freelancing full-time and making the same as you would in a salaried job or even a little more, you're not charging nearly enough.
When you freelance, you don't get paid sick days or paid holidays, and there's considerable risk you might not have any billed hours of work for weeks at a time. This at a minimum is why you need to be charging more per hour than you'd make per hour at a salaried job.
I think as a general rule, if you're freelancing full-time and making the same as you would in a salaried job or even a little more, you're not charging nearly enough.
When you freelance, you don't get paid sick days or paid holidays, and there's considerable risk you might not have any billed hours of work for weeks at a time. This at a minimum is why you need to be charging more per hour than you'd make per hour at a salaried job.
No, that is a Russian site that uses English/USD (maybe for easier international remote job seekers.)
Yeah thanks for pointing that out. However I’m sure I’ve seen the same thing from US companies
Since the project is long term, 20$ - 30$ per hour comes to around $41k - $61k per year. This is a pretty good amount in the vast majority of the countries. The target audience is obviously not developers living in Silicon Valley. Probably looking for developers from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa or South America. Also, there are a lot of countries that offer tax benefits when you are working as a freelancer.
In some countries say like India, a freelancer can register as a one person business/one person company and all income treated as business income. This way your tax payable becomes based on income-business expenses similar to an LLC or corp.
Yeah. Brazil is like that.
That’s 40-60k before taxes. I realize that taxes I’m the IS are much lower, but do you have any idea on a rough percentage?
In my experience, taxes in US are not lower if you include health insurance premiums and out of pocket healthcare costs.
The US is great if you’re in top 10% of incomes, but if you can’t afford to take advantage of the money tax exemptions and credits, then it’s not any better for the middle 30% to 70% of income earners who don’t make enough for government assistance, but also don’t make enough to take advantage of the tax code.
The US is great if you’re in top 10% of incomes, but if you can’t afford to take advantage of the money tax exemptions and credits, then it’s not any better for the middle 30% to 70% of income earners who don’t make enough for government assistance, but also don’t make enough to take advantage of the tax code.
As GP just said, this posting is probably not intended to be taken up by a US person. There are many markets around the world where that's a very good salary.
Really depends on your country, but expenses + taxes can be from 1/2-2/3 depending on your location.
At $60k from freelancing, take home will be around $40k.
I freelanced a few times for short periods and charged $90 an hour for front-end web development. At the time I was living in Santa Monica, CA, and the business was located within 20 miles.
Freelance rates vary a LOT depending of your location.
A rate of 20-30$/h is pretty standard for developers "outside" the US.
For developers "in" the US, I think you shouldn't accept less than 50$/h. Regarding how much you could ask, I think that depends (besides your experience) of the city in which the client is.
A rate of 20-30$/h is pretty standard for developers "outside" the US.
For developers "in" the US, I think you shouldn't accept less than 50$/h. Regarding how much you could ask, I think that depends (besides your experience) of the city in which the client is.
While there aren't published market rates, you can get an idea of what people are charging by computing per-hour compensation from salary data found in sites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor and adding a 20-40% premium on top (to account for additional expenses such as insurance and taxes).
I'm working remotely in the US and charge $55/h for development and consulting.
If you are doing it right, you are charging so much that you don't care whether you bill 50 days a year or a 100.
That rate would be considered a reasonable rate in Latin American countries.
I have often been somewhat confused when it comes to hourly rates for freelancers in IT. While it is pretty normal to charge more than 60€/h here in Europe I’m always shocked to come across postings like these from the US:
https://soshace.com/jobs/python-back-end-web-developer-remot...
This is a remote python job for an intermediate or senior developer that pays 20-30$/h. And not the first one of that kind I came across.
That would mean a freelancer makes less than half the money as compared to a 9-5.
Is this normal?