Help me with pricing for Flash work

[grease]

Hello...new guy here...I wonder if anyone can help me out...

I have read the threads here on pricing, but still can't seem to find any good context for pricing on some things I have built.

The problem is that I'm not a Flash developer, or a web developer, nor do I know any people who do work like this. Rather, I'm a college professor who in his spare time messes around with Flash and ActionScript (sometimes useful stuff, sometimes not). Some of these Flash things have generated a lot of hits on my website, and I have now received requests for incorporation of my work into web designs.

So when I'm asked how much do I charge, I have no idea how to respond. One contact mentioned their freelance rate is around $125/hr, which sounds just fine to me (and maybe even more than what I've read about elsewhere).

However, I have already built some things, and can't say how much time I spent on them (I wasn't keeping track). But for something like a particle animation I created, I know I must have spent hours and hours (maybe 20 -40) fiddling with different settings, experimenting with different methods, etc. So coming up with a number of hours spent on a specific project really is impossible and somewhat meaningless in the end, because the work was not consistent and not necessarily directed towards the final finished project.

In the end, when considering a project I'd rather just like to know: how much is someone willing to pay for something like this?

Here is the one application that has generated some requests: Bitmap Morph

Incorporating this into a web design would require some modification.

When I figure the amount of time put into this and a reasonable hourly rate, I end up with a number in the thousands of dollars...$2000? $3000? That sounds kind of pricey. Is anyone willing to pay that?!?

What might help me is to see some examples of Flash work and to know how much the developer ended up getting for this work.

I know pricing questions are common here, but I can't seem to get a good sense of context. So any help would be appreciated.

[grease]

I hope I'm not double-posting. I think there was an error with the first attempt...ugh...now I have to type that whole thing again...

I'm new here. I'm wondering if anyone can give me some advice on pricing.

I have indeed read the threads here about pricing and how to figure it, but I'm afraid I still don't have a good idea how to handle pricing for my work. I can figure an hourly rate, but the work I have done is hard to price based on hours.

The problem is that I'm not a Flash developer or a web designer, nor do I really know anyone who does that kind of work. I'm a college professor who messes around with Flash/ActionScript development in his spare time. Some of the work I have done has generated a lot of hits at my website, and now I am getting a few requests from web developers who want to incorporate my work into their web designs.

However, it is very difficult to figure the number of hours spent developing some of these things, because they materialized out of experimentation - Anything posted on my site represents just one example of time spent screwing around with different settings and coding methods. My time was not necessarily directed towards a final project.

So I find pricing by hourly rate to be somewhat meaningless in the end. Rather, I'd just like to know: how much is someone willing to pay for something like this?

One Flash example generating a lot of hits is this one: [url ='http://www.dangries.com/Flash/Experiments/Particles/bitmap3D_twoPics.html']Bitmap Morph[/url]. Requests have come in for adaptations to be used in web design.

When I attempt to come up with hours spent and an hourly rate, I come up with a total in the thousands of dollars...$2000? $4000? But that's sounds awfully pricey to me! Would anyone be willing to pay that much for a particle effect like this?!? Looking at a place like Flashloaded makes me think I'd be lucky to get a hundred bucks for it!

Of course, I would have to figure in the extra amount of time needed to adapt this work to the designer's needs.

I know pricing is a common question around here and that there's no good answer to something like this, but any advice would be appreciated. I'm just not a programmer/designer/freelancer by trade and I know nothing about the business.

I think one thing that would be helpful is to be able to see some examples of Flash work and to know the final price tag for the development. Is such information talked about in public?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[grease]

Ahhh crap...despite the warning I double-posted. Sorry about that. Please neglect this post and reply to the other one.

[gerbick]

I collected the other post; no problems on the double post. I think you got caught up in a database hiccup - as did I.

Just consider this post a "cleanup"... continue.

[grease]

thanks for the cleanup, gerbick!