| "charge low enough" For a while I had the idea that I would only charge the rate that I actually required to cover my modest expenses. I got no offers for any kind of work. Not perm, not contract. Now that I charge obscene hourly rates I'm getting lots of work. If you don't charge enough for contract coding potential clients will assume that you are so inexperienced that you are completely unaware of what other contractors are charging. Use http://salary.com to guide your bid. If you _do_ choose to pursue contract programming, add one-half of your IRS 1040 Schedule SE Self Employment Tax to salary.com's salary then convert it to hourly rates. But you will also want to pay for your own vacations, medical insurance and the like. Do some research on what kind of benefits your kind of coder receives than add at least that much to salary.com's salary and one-half of your self-employment tax. (The self employment tax is equal to the sum of the employer and employee contributes to FICA - the social security tax.) Also take into account the cost of providing your own software and equipment, your advertising and other legitimate business expenses. All this has the result that contractors appear to be far better paid than are perm employees. If you only charge what I advise above then your take-home pay will be no more than that of the perms. |
Aside: Not a great sign that the answer that most strongly advises honesty is the lowest-rated...