[fightfortheuser]

I used to charge $50 USD per hour, but I kept upping my rates. Soon I charged $100 per hour, and then $125 hour. The highest I ever got for programming/consulting was $150 USD per hour, but I don't charge that anymore. I've moved on to day rates.

Now I bill around $800 per day, but I only work about 6 super-focused hours, and I use the Pomodoro method every day. My clients are happy because I get a lot of work done, and I'm happy because I have to work less.

This is just doing general PHP dev work (Codeigniter and Laravel frameworks), and if I specialized, and if I focused on the ecommerce or finance industry I could probably make more. Most my clients are in the Rocky Mountain West, and so far I have more work than I can finish.

So if you want to increase your earning potential you should:

  1. Specialize and master a niche.
  2. Network like your business depends on it. 
  3. Give free seminars and teach everywhere you go. 
  4. Label yourself as a consultant.
  5. Don't be just a programmer. Work with businesses and fix their problems. 
  6. Know your worth, and don't be afraid to charge what you're worth. 
  7. Anchor your costs against how much value you'll make your clients.
  8. Keep raising your rates until you can't get any work. 
  9. Work half as much as you used to. 
  10. And finally, spend time on things that matter like family, learning, and having fun.

Or you can keep competing against bottom-barrel programmers on upwork, and spend the rest of your life working for peanuts. Totally up to you.

[femto113]

Definitely recommend billing by the day (or even week). It can make a huge difference in your relationship with the client and helps get them past thinking about how much you work and focus more on what you accomplish.

On a side note I actually offer billing by the half day, but price a half day at more than half a full day. This is intended to encourage clients to batch up work rather than feed it to me in dribs.

[fightfortheuser]

Well done. Daily billing is loads better than hourly billing. I think I made an extra $10,000 in a year, just because I billed by the day.

And you are right. A day rate starts to shift the focus on the outcomes of the project, and less on how much it costs.

[throwmenow_0139]

I'm 18 years old, doing full-stack web dev for ~2 years (Django, node.js, whatever.js, no wordpress stuff) and charge ~35-40 euro/hour while studying computer science. I get most of my projects through word-of-mouth and I'm currently trying to create products that allow me to build a small company - I'm partnering up with some software developers, entrepreneurs and a project manager.

It's not uncommon that web agencies in Germany only charge 70 euro/hour, so I would like to hear what's necessary to charge something like 100-150 euro/hour - seems like those rates are only possible in the US or doing specialized things like SAP consulting. It's difficult to compare those US numbers because the german system seems to be very different wrt salaries - 60-70k is considered good even for experienced developers, while it seems that those numbers are absolutely sub-par for US developers.

Would love to hear some tips on how to acquire new clients (especially in non-tech industries) and how to find interesting business problems to solve.

My strategy would be to reach out to local companies, analyze their businesses and build solutions that save them time and money (very similar to business consulting except doing software engineering) and getting inspiration for SaaS businesses. Would like to hear your opinion about this way.

[Matthias247]

For a student in germany that's a pretty good income. Think I earned less than 10€ at university back then :(

Regarding the question: 100-150€/h is not too unusual in the enterprise world. However it's more like what is paid to consulting/contracting companies than to freelancers. A lot of bigger companies that I know try to avoid freelancers nowadays and want to give contracts to bigger companies instead (e.g. for legal reasons).

My experience is also that high rates are mostly paid for some kind of generic or management consulting (not really technical) or if the contractor has a really great reputation at the company. For generic SW development your 70€ figure seems closer to the truth. For technical stuff the highest rates I have seen were for security related consulting and development.

[tluyben2]

>so I would like to hear what's necessary to charge something like 100-150 euro/hour -

Embedded, especially small footprint (32kb ram and that kind of thing) is an easy one.

Enterprise senior dev pays more than that as well if you are good. I ran gigs in Munchen for 150/hr and German friends of mine still do.

However 60k is that salary and is that gross or net? Think you are comparing apples and oranges; in the Netherlands, and Germany does not seem very different in that respect, if you get 60k salary, the company is actually paying more than 120k for you. So if you convert that to freelancing, you should be charging at least that 120k (which is less than 70/hr).

[ddorian43]

Go remote across the ocean to the promised land of USA. Things in EU suck for software-people.

Source: Have you ever read of someone making 200K+ in EU ? Me neither.

[tluyben2]

At least where I am from it is very strange for people to talk or write about what they earn. No one would tell you even if you would ask usually. Not that anyone would ask. But yes, have made that and know plenty of seniors that do. They would not boast about it though while, but that is the HN echo chamber maybe, everyone in the US spends solid amounts of time talking and worrying about it?

[ddorian43]

(it's the same in my country, about not showing wages). That just makes things worse for us software-people.

I didn't write about knowing anyone personally, just about reading on the web. Your message is the first one that I've seen.

Since you have a .nl domain, I'm a little surprised about it. (was excepting something like London/SW).

[tluyben2]

To be fair most of my paid work is DE or UK or NL enterprise. Those all pay well in my experience.

[xyzzyz]

It is not so easy to legally immigrate to the US. It is long and involved process, and then you're usually more or less stuck with the company that sponsored you, at least for a while.

[ddorian43]

I meant it for remote. Which is also hard in it's own way.

[pibi]

Node/Socket.io|Sockjs/AngularJS Development from Italy - 2000$/week working 2/3 days per week. Made 5 figures with different clients on the last 2 years on Upwork and I'm really not a good English speaker. I think your 1. point is the key, especially if you are competing with bottom-barrel programmers. It is the thing that makes your proposal outstanding against the competition, even if you are not a good communicator, but you have to learn how to select your client or the projects.

I'm a seasoned node.js developer (since 0.1.30) and I'm specialized on the "realtime" web, (e.g. chat, push notifications, events synchronization ) and scalable architectures. For everyone interested, feel free to reach me out at pibi046(.at.)gmail(.dot.)com.

[keviv]

Nice! I too work on CodeIngiter and Laravel along with Angular and React. I live in India and the local companies pay peanuts, which means no local projects. How do I find more clients and projects in the US?

[fightfortheuser]

The best thing is to do is to build out your network. Keep reaching out to the people in the USA. Make sure your english is impeccable, as that will help build your perceived level of trust.

I suggest also getting out there more. Blogging works but you have to market your posts, and it's more long term. Teaching for notable learning platforms works, as well as helping to write public courses.

Anyway, the key lesson is to get out there and meet people. Then as you talk about what you do, and if you are good, you'll find work.

[theparanoid]

For the amount of effort blogging isn't a good payoff. My blog had 20k views per yr and yielded zero paying work.

Blog for personal fulfillment not monetary gain.

[keviv]

Thanks!

[mgkimsal]

never met you - this is not bashing you - but I will tell you what not to do.

* do not call or email me weekly for years on end telling me how great your programming is. i don't care - i have too much on my plate already.

* do not join slack channels and pm each person individually telling them you want to start work on their php project.

these two things have turned me off of almost all developers who are not in my immediate area, but especially ones outside my country. please do not harass me. I've had more than a dozen folks - probably nice and well meaning - join our local developer groups and then email everyone in the group individually asking for work. I've had several more that would ping me every time I opened skype with "hello mr mike - we are ready to take on your next php project". Holy tamole... just stop.

What works? I've done a couple of small projects testing out non-us folks. These were either word-of-mouth referrals, or I'd found someone y their blog when searching for something niche. Keep a good clean blog, have a portfolio, build a network of folks who may read your blog or see your portfolio who may recommend your services. It's pretty straightfoward. Do not pester/harass me or my friends. It's the fastest way for me to block you.

[jrs235]

> * do not call or email me weekly for years on end telling me how great your programming is. i don't care - i have too much on my plate already.

I receive too many random emails too. Absolutely annoying. A few weeks ago I received one that begin "Hello, I recently spent some time doing a site review of your website. (Yes, I do random site reviews for a living.)"

Wanting to call the bluff and wondering which website they claimed to have reviewed I replied "You don't say! What website are you speaking of?"

Their reply: "Thanks for your response. Actually i do email marketing so i usually send emails in bulk. I got your email id from domain directory, so i send you too. If you have any kind of requirement regarding Web Development or Digital Marketing please let me know. I will be happy to assist you.

Look forward to work for you!"

I knew it! My response: "Oh. So you didn't review my site."

Their response: "Thanks for your prompt response. I just reviewed your website, which is {real web site address}[1] and it seems that your website is in under process."

Do they also think I really believe their name is Steven Moore too? I wouldn't trust this person or company to ever do work for me...

[1] The site address was really there (not a template holder).

[fgpwd]

I once met a guy in a Starbucks in New Delhi. He asked me about my job. Me: "I am a software developer." Him: "Oh no! You are not one of those Indian guys who keep on sending Skype messages to everybody asking for projects and selling services? Are you?"

LOL. I agree, a lot of people engage in spamming others like that in India. A lot of people do just this (sending unwanted messages to "leads" on Skype , email, slack, whatever) as their day job to make a living.

[keviv]

I totally understand your feelings. I too have hired local freelancers in the past and I still get emails from them now and then. I always mark them as spam, but they tend to change their email addresses every time :(

[wusatiuk]

keviv, i checked out your blog. please send me your contact details by email. :) thanks

[keviv]

Done.

[antouank]

Where do you get remote contract work from? Any website/agency that helps with finding clients?

[tixocloud]

Curious - how did you get things started?

[godd2]

If there are any programming/tech meetups in your area, go to them! Ask around for any work that needs to be done. Draft a quick talk on something you've worked on recently, and give it. Networking is a very powerful tool.

[tixocloud]

Thanks for the tips.

[IndianAstronaut]

Very interesting idea on the teaching bit. It seems a great way to promote yourself.

[amingilani]

Any tips for remote? I live in a far away country with no physical access to the US.

[fightfortheuser]

Sure, see my note to the user @keviv