Php Coder Cost per Hour?

Drakla

I've never done a freelance php coding job before, but have just applied for a position and have been asked for my hourly rate. Anybody know what the going / reasonable rate is for a UK contract?

danw

$12 would do me good, but that's just me.

pjleonhardt

it really depends on how much experience you have, how complicated the work will be and how much time/effort you will have to put into it...

next factor is finding out how much theyre willing to pay you, and if its higher than your offer.... nudge it up a little bit, lol

Drakla

I've been programming in php and mysql for a year - and solidly, picking it up really quickly because I've programmed in C++ for ages. Basically every day trying to learn more and more, because I really love it (especially after a brief period with Perl... shudder).

I've just completed the front and backend coding for a dynamic online directory that has loads of excellent features in the admin section. Thing is I did if for a friend of a friend, and basically got nothing towards what something like that would really cost. I've seen the brief of what the guy wants, a breadcrumb system, user login - all of which I've done, so know I can do the job. Thing is, I've never contracted, so have no idea of what would be laughably high or low to quote him. The contract is estimated at 2-3 weeks and in London.

james_kirk

I really don't know how to advise you.

I know people who make $150 per hour coding c++ as senior programmers. I also know people who provide entire web site solutions for $10,000.00 - $15,000.00 per time and people who still code in lisp getting $100.00 per hour.

At the other end of the spectrum I know people giving their skills away free in a desperate attempt to try and gain extra experience.

I know someone who codes HTML for $8.00 per hour.

I think the guy above has the right idea....try to find out what they might be willing to pay..perhaps you could ask just how involved the PHP they are looking for will be...MYSQL interoperability and HTML echoing for exmple is a lot easier than shortest path algorithms for example.

Perhaps you could charge them per job....

planetsim

Ive done freelancing for a while now and usually try to work on a project base. Find out how long i think without any testing, debugging and fixing it will take than times that by 3 so i can do testing.

Than from that work out what your worth per hour. Dont make yourself out to be too expensive especially when starting out as theyd expect the quality from you, for what they are paying try and charge somewhere above minimum wages so $10-$12hr is about right. Get more experience and slowly up the rate.