How much to charge??

I have a client in Washington D.C. that wants a bid for a site - does anyone have an idea what would be a fair hourly rate to charge in that part of the country?

The job would include php and MySQL coding mainly. Probably a smaller site, little or no bells & whistles.

I am on the other side of the country and didn't know if rates differ much from here.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.
jasonn.

Lol, you are in my district now....

Well, it all depends. I can get you right on the knob for hourly rates:

Is this government?
Do you have others you are competing against, if so, what are they offering or what scripting language are they offering to do the project in?
If this isn't for a government branch or office, how big is the company or corporation - and how recognized is the company or corporation?
How much experience do you have?
Are you providing any graphics for the site?
How many hours do you estimate it will take you to complete the job?

It takes more information than that to work up a competitive price, but I think we can work with that.

Answer those and I can work up a price for you....

jpenn,
I charge $85.00-$120.00 an hour for PHP or JSP with graphics, depending on code complexity. How does that compare to what your aware of? One thing I will add is that I charge $500.00 to show up for a consulting meeting locally or via phone, one hour of time give or take plus whatever proof of concept I have developed. I used to not do that but after a company implemented my ideas on their own and I got nothing, I changed it. Hell, plumbers get $150.00 for coming to your house even if nothing is wrong!

Thanks jpenn.

The company is a Law Firm of about 4-5 lawyers (I believe). I am working on the project with the owner's son (so we have the job - as long as we don't come in with a ridiculous bid). The law firm is pretty well known around the country (more clients than they can handle -- so I am told).

We will be building the site from scratch (including the design), they may provide pics but they will have to be made web ready. The site will be a smaller site (I have not got specifics of what they want yet - hence I am giving them an hourly rate so I don't get screwed).

As for my credentials (so to speak).
I have a BA in Graphic Design and have been in the 'real world' working for a company designing, building and managing a number of sites for about 2 years now. I have been involved with PHP/MySQL for about one of those.

Again, thanks for the reply. I have posted this else where and the best response I got was not to charge more than $20 -- so I went out in search of someone who really has a clue, since I can charge more than double that in a small city here in Utah.

jasonn.

Out of curiosity chuck, this is just vanilla web-design with excellent graphics and some small scriplets so to speak, or full on programming or dynamic content? Also, are you aware of what lawyers fees are? LOL!

Thats the same rates here in MD, DC, VA - crap - you are a skip right outside of VA. DC, depending on if it is a government institution, flat at $100.00ph - simply becuase if it is government, 9 times out of 10 it is on their procurement list and all usally have access to it, competitors that is. In government cases we get squashed on every thing we try to get.

We take time and multiply by 1.4 also. The Coporate companies within this area are for the most part are large Corporations, and most times than not are national companies that do not mind spending the extra dollars, they run 120.00ph with an extra 20.00ph for high risk sites <- meaning more security features implemented, SSL, etc... We implement PHP and PERL <- PERL for stronger security measures. There is alot of competition around here as the market in this area is always booming, no matter what the economy is doing. We rely more on our sales personel than anything and provide them with an expense fund to do whatever possible to make a sale. We also pay for their market/learning materials, if needed.

We have been around for about 6 years now. We started in the printing/publishing industry and have done numerous jobs for the army, navy, supreme court and a bunch of other government work, the veterans administration is another.

As for charging for consultations, we haven't gone that route yet. Haven't had no major problems with corps running of with our ideas or anything that I know of, but if it does happen, I will not hesitate to change that policy.

Also, we are currently working on a major project with the MD school board. They will be a test run for possibly a federal government funded national project......

Xdeth,

Pretty well vanilla I believe, they don't want any bells & whistles. We will probably do a descent amount as dynamic content and give them an 'admin' area to go and change e-mails, phone numbers and that sort of stuff. As I said before, I am not real sure as to exactly what they want on the site. My guess is the basics (contact, who they are and such). I am told that their (these lawyers) rate is around $200ph.

jasonn.

Can't help too much since I'm over in Kiwiland - lol.

However we simply charge a flat rate of $140 per hour. This is pretty standard, although usually project / engagement management is higher, and graphics, HTML coding might be a little less. This is for full corporate web services, usually with oracle/postgres backends, heavy stored procedure coding, applicaiton layer, etc...

If you told me you were going charge $200 an hour, I'd want to know that the job was going to take you less hours (eg reduce my total cost), that the guy down the road who charges $100 So you definately need to know what the market rate is, and if you are above it, you need to justify this.

How we work is in the first round of work we're lucky we earn $140, more likely you end up doing more hours that you quote. However you develop your system well so when they want maintenance you end up earning say double your $140 an hour, because it is all so easy. Everything is still charged out at $140, if you see what I mean



<disclaimer>
Xdeth, I really don't mean to flame here, but I have to make a comment. Please don't take it negatively, and you'll notice that I really, really do see your point
</disclaimer>

If you said that to me you'd get a laugh, and I'd be off the phone in a second. You had better be the guru developer from hell to charge $500 just to talk to me Trying to make a small business work here in little old NZ, I completely understand your point, but I'm sorry it is just the way things are You need to develop a relationship with clients and the first thing they need to do is feel comfortable with you.

Man I tell you what is reall hard. And that is RFIs/RFPs These are Request for Information and Request for Proposal. All government work in NZ is done through this way. First you put in an RFI which takes you all week, then if you do a great job you get a shot an RFP, which takes at least another week and here you actually have a shot at getting some work. This is all for nothing, and the company gets your ideas for nothing. Sucks huh? Oh yes, and even worse often the company already knows who their going with. However, there is nothing you can do about this as it is a main way of getting work.

Anyway that is how it is here, I don't know about the states. I'm interested though.

Good luck to both of you

Z.

I didn't say I don't talk to anyone without that fee, just not going to spend any time working up a presentation or proof of concept including my time at a meeting wthout some money. After your burned a few times and waste god knows how many hours doing that kind of thing for not, you will really see my point.

I am from hell though

LOL Baby, well if you are that good, perhaps we should meet in private

Hey man, I do [b]totally[b/] see your point. Like I said we've spent heaps of time on potential work that turned in to nothing. When your small this really hurts, and this has included developing a solution concept and the rest of it.

I guess if you are an independent contracter it is a little different, but my point is that here the industry expects you to do the homework before you get the job. I'd love to get paid for doing this, but it ain't going to happen. So I've been burnt plenty, but you get used to it, and you get back into the fire and give it another shot.

Awesome, Z.

Well, I am pretty new at this work for yourself thing. I'm working hard to launch my official product line and services by the new year. Currently I try to seperate the sales from what I term the sales consultation, which as you know involves work without pay, wireframes or whatever else you create. I can't say I have any of this down to a science or that it works best, I'm sure not falling over myself with jobs right now. This is for sure one area of this industry I never saw myself trying to master, learning......curve......steep.....must ....keep ......going......need...money......bad.....

Thanks for the info though, this is good stuff.

Just trying to help, honestly

Good luck. What products are you working on btw??

Z.

Ecommerce systems similar to miva marketplace or element^3, only written in more reasonable programming languages, PHP, JSP. Its a start.

Cool, haven't done much work with ecommerce yet, but I've heard php Shop is pretty cool. There are a couple of tutorials on it at devshed I think. Good luck

Z.

Jesus Christ!
Are all of u being serious? $100ph?
PHP could make me rich later on!