rates for contract work

[dasein]

Imagine my surprise when I actually started getting a few nibbles on my lines to do some contract flash work. Now I'm pressed to come up with an hourly rate to charge. I live in San Francisco, so rates are probably pretty good, but as a newer face on the scene, I'm not going to charge an arm and a leg. I've got a sound aesthetic sense and I'm fairly skilled with actionscript, not a whiz, but certainly capable of handling most of what the avg. corporate client would likely to be looking for. I was thinking $25 an hour - is that too low/high? What's the going rate?

Thanks

[AxsDeny at work]

we charge $35/hr just for HTML. I wouldn't go any lower than $40 especially in SF. Heck, I'm in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania and we still get the going rate.

[Seti]

I'm in Belgium, when we're outsourcing we charge about 600$ or euro per day (75 an hour), but that's on large contracts and involves flash, html, java, javascript, server- and database (like oracle), delphi and vb programming.

On smaller contracts, f.e. webdesign for small companies, we make a price for the whole thing in advance. Probably it's about 30-40$ or euro an hour.

Don't ask too low, clients won't take you seriously, and don't ask too much, cause you're ripping them off then.

CU

[eightlegged]

In'm Uk based, and if I can help it I'll charge for the Job rather than / hour.

As far as rates go, I guess there isn't a flat fee, it all depends on how much you think the client will pay.

My advice check out the clients car, if it's a merc or bmw, the the price goes up, if it's a fiat panda the price comes down.

Here's the last piece of freelance work i completed, I charged £2500 stiring(about $3000-3500 us dollars)

http://www.market-placecatering.co.uk

(But he drive a jag)

[derrickito]

dont short change yourself, my company charges 125 and hour for flash work,

freelancers around here generally price between 50 and 75, give or take a bit

your just plain lowballing us. get what your worth, you have a specialized skill that someone cannot do themselves. charge correctly for it

[dasein]

thanks for all the responses - guess i was a little off the mark, eh? ; )

i sent them a more realistic range - we'll see what happens, wish me luck!

thanks again for the responses.

[SuperMario]

I started out pretty cheap at $20 / hour.

Then somebody came along and said "Do a short flash intro. We'll pay you $100 / hour."

I haven't had a hit like that ever since...

Nonetheless, now I charge $40 for Flash animation, $80 for Flash Actionscripting or ASP programming, and $35 for HTML coding. Purty sweet. I made about $955 on this site which goes live Monday:

http://www.catapultic.com/onesource

Took me a long time! But it's a nice site, I think.

Dan

[zacvin]

I have to agree with seti and eightlegged that if its a small job try to set a price for the full job. What I think is a good idea though is to put in your contract, or what ever they must sigh or agree with, that you estimate the job, but you allow 15% plus or minus if the real price dose not match the estimation. This way, if things take more time than you think, you will have some way to make up for it. On the other hand, if you end-up doing the job for less, then you look like a hero to the client.

[Kinomation]

We're based in Melbourne, Australia and charge $50 an hour for flash work. I don't know how that is compared to eveyone else but it seems to have worked reasonably well for us.
By the way SuperMario that Onesource is a pretty good site.

[SuperMario]

Thanx man!

[Valmont]

We are located in Zurich, Switzerland and we never charge less than 100$/hour.

Valmont