Salary requirement for PHP Programmer

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Here is a rule of thumb that us professional contractors like to use for freelancing in the corporate world. Take what you would make per year and double the digits before the comma. Hence if you make $30K per year you should charge $60 an hour. It's a good baseline. You should always be higher priced than what they pay someone that works full time for them.

$25K per year, $50 per hour contracting.
$50K per year, $100 per hour contracting.
$75K per year, $150 per hour contracting.
$100K per year, $200 per hour contracting.

If you want to see what the rates for your area are, check some boards such as Dice.com - Job search for Technology Professionals for your local rates.
 


smash said:
$25K per year, $50 per hour contracting.
$50K per year, $100 per hour contracting.
$75K per year, $150 per hour contracting.
$100K per year, $200 per hour contracting.
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Those numbers are way out of wack. A contractor will make more but not 4x more. $50/h is ~100k a year.
 
smash said:
$25K per year, $50 per hour contracting.
$50K per year, $100 per hour contracting.
$75K per year, $150 per hour contracting.
$100K per year, $200 per hour contracting.

If you want to see what the rates for your area are, check some boards such as Dice.com - Job search for Technology Professionals for your local rates.
Click to expand...


Dude. Those numbers are backwards.

Look at it this way. On average, each person has 2,000 billable hours per year (40hrs/week * 50 workweeks/year = 2,000 workhours/year). So therefore, if you want to make $50k this year (gross, pre tax) you can charge $25/hr ($25*2,000=$50,000). To earn 6 figures you need to charge at least $50/hr.
 
DaveEMG said:
Dude. Those numbers are backwards.

Look at it this way. On average, each person has 2,000 billable hours per year (40hrs/week * 50 workweeks/year = 2,000 workhours/year). So therefore, if you want to make $50k this year (gross, pre tax) you can charge $25/hr ($25*2,000=$50,000). To earn 6 figures you need to charge at least $50/hr.
Click to expand...

I believe smash was explaining that you should basically charge 4x the hourly rate of a fulltime salary employee. Yes, if you're purely just trying to compare what $25/hr would come out to for typical hours during a year, you can basically double it ($50,000). But contract work should pay more than full time salary work for many reasons (full time often includes benefits, vacation, more stability, etc).
 
Squirrelinabox said:
I believe smash was explaining that you should basically charge 4x the hourly rate of a fulltime salary employee. Yes, if you're purely just trying to compare what $25/hr would come out to for typical hours during a year, you can basically double it ($50,000). But contract work should pay more than full time salary work for many reasons (full time often includes benefits, vacation, more stability, etc).
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I doubt your going to find any place willing to pay 4x what they would pay a regular employee. Double maybe, but quadruple? Good luck. More power to you if you can get it.
 
illkity said:
I doubt your going to find any place willing to pay 4x what they would pay a regular employee. Double maybe, but quadruple? Good luck. More power to you if you can get it.
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I completely agree. I was just trying to clarify what smash was trying to say. You should definitely get paid more in a consultant type position than a regular full time employee, but 4x would be stretching it and would probably be more of an exception than a rule.
 
DaveEMG said:
Dude. Those numbers are backwards.

Look at it this way. On average, each person has 2,000 billable hours per year (40hrs/week * 50 workweeks/year = 2,000 workhours/year). So therefore, if you want to make $50k this year (gross, pre tax) you can charge $25/hr ($25*2,000=$50,000). To earn 6 figures you need to charge at least $50/hr.
Click to expand...
Those numbers are correct. If you've worked at freelancing for a half a year, you will realise that

1) It's not possible to push 40 hour weeks freelancing.
2) Your work year will not have 50 weeks.

Now, clients want to get charged by the hour on the actual programming stuff you do. However, there is also

1) Initial communication
2) Help with creating the spec
3) Additional communication during the project development
4) Time wasted at the end of the project.

If you're working freelancing, you'll know how important it is to get a new client BEFORE the current project ends, otherwise you will be back to living in your parent's basement.

So you're going to waste time with potential clients who are just shopping around and wasting everyone's time. You are going to waste time analyzing specs and giving quotes to clients who go and hire someone else. At the start when you need all the clients you can get, you'll even waste time writing specs for clients who will take them to other programmers.

Unless you are working from an office you rent, you will have an infinite number of distractions. If you have a girlfriend, wife, kids, you're fucked. If you're working from home, you will have discipline issues, you'll find it hard to wake up at proper times and start working like a good ass employee, and work done late at night will be sloppy - life isn't quite as easy working for someone else who have detailed specifications as it is when working for yourself. Since you have no management overlooking you, several hours per day will be wasted at forums like wickedfire, browsing coder blogs, etc.

Take away from that vacation money and time you don't get, insurance, taxes, additional perks, computers, software, etc.

Basically, you waste SO much fucking time and money you have to charge much much more. That being said, 4x is a bit of an exaggeration.
 
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