how much should i charge?
Out of context: Reply #25
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- monNom0
Generally you can just take your salary/1000 to get a rough base-line for the minimum you should be charging your former employer per hour. Don't go below this number.
Solo freelance is different, as if you're out winning your own jobs, negotiating, invoicing, etc. your rate should be much higher to account for higher overhead, less billable hours in the year, non-paying customers, etc. In a situation like that you're lucky to have 50% of your hours billable,
If you want to get really deep you calculate all expenses as though you were buying them today, and prorate the cost over their useful life. Eg: a $4,000 computer might last 2 years before replacement. That's ~4000 hours, so for each hour of use, your computer costs you a dollar that you need to bill for. Same goes for your software, your office space, your electricity, your accountant fees, your legal fees, etc.
Make sure to add 20-30% as a profit margin if you want your business to grow at all.
if you can't get that rate, don't freelance.
- also, quote the project price and fixed deliverables. nobody cares about your rate, they want to know what it will cost them.monNom