Freelance rates across the world

[blockage]

I'm a London based flash dev and I'm trying to build up and accurate picture of freelance rates around the world. As far a I can see Flash hasn't really been touched by the credit crunch but is this really so?

I know good AS3 guys in London charge up to about £400 GBP / day. Flex goes up to about £500 / day. This hasn't changed much over the last few years.

I hear that in San Francisco and New York the rates are about $75-100 USD / hour for experienced AS3 programers.

Anyone know anything about other digital hubs?
- Austin, TX?
- Portland, OR?
- Boulder, CO?

[Flash Gordon]

in San Fran the rate is hire than that from my personal experience. I've been in San Fran several times this year for Flash conventions and haven't met anyone that meets your low. However, this isn't the place for such discussions. take it else where, punk :p

[ASWC]

in San Fran the rate is hire
hummm ... all right the "rate is hire". I thought going to college would prepare me well for English based communication but obviously there's still things that are beyond me. :p

[Flash Gordon]

I've obviously been doing too much outsourcing.....

[ASWC]

I'm a London based flash dev and I'm trying to build up and accurate picture of freelance rates around the world. As far a I can see Flash hasn't really been touched by the credit crunch but is this really so?

I know good AS3 guys in London charge up to about £400 GBP / day. Flex goes up to about £500 / day. This hasn't changed much over the last few years.

I hear that in San Francisco and New York the rates are about $75-100 USD / hour for experienced AS3 programers.

Anyone know anything about other digital hubs?
- Austin, TX?
- Portland, OR?
- Boulder, CO?
Here in Vermont they never heard of Flash or even web as a whole so the only rates available are only for cow milking and it's about $14/hours if you got a good experience. Filling holes on the road can also be lucrative and plow the snow of course. When I say around that I'm a Flash developer they all think I'm working on creating a new type of Flash light. So now you are all set concerning Vermont rates, I can't tell for other states.

[yell0wdart]

$75/hr sounds a little low to me. I usually charge $100/hr if I'm contracting and going to be doing a lot of development.

[kkbbcute]

hummm ... all right the "rate is hire". I thought going to college would prepare me well for English based communication but obviously there's still things that are beyond me. :p

MAYBE its a complicated use of the english language where he used the word hire as a pun to mean both "higher" and that the rate is the trigger for what hires him! :p

Jokes aside, it actually all depends, some people work for more, others work for less, other do all sorts of stuff for free just for publicity. Rates vary from place to place but in the end, getting a job you like is the most important,, not a $5 difference in the money you earn, seriously.

[blockage]

@yell0wdart thanks very helpful.

@Flash Gordon what ARE you talking about. Why not the place? Although people are always very cagey about talking about the money they make, its actually in everyone's interest to settle on a market rate.

@kkbbcute it actually doesn't depend. If you get deeply in to the Flash contracting market you'll find that experienced professionals tend to charge about the same -- and rarely work for free unless it's for charity. Sure there are rock stars that can charge $1000/hour and students that have to work for free to get started, but in the middle rates tend to level out.

[Flash Gordon]

no, this is a place for JOBS! not talking about them. Go to the general chat to talk about it.

[blockage]

no, this is a place for JOBS! not talking about them. Go to the general chat to talk about it.

Right! Ok thanks

[blockage]

I'm a London based flash dev and I'm trying to build up and accurate picture of freelance rates around the world. As far a I can see Flash hasn't really been touched by the credit crunch but is this really so?

I know experienced AS3 guys in London charge up to about £400 GBP / day. Flex goes up to about £500 / day. This hasn't changed much over the last few years.

I hear that in San Francisco and New York the rates are about $100 USD / hour for experienced AS3 programers.

Anyone know anything about other digital hubs?
- Austin, TX?
- Portland, OR?
- Boulder, CO?

[Sorry for the x-post. I asked this in the wrong forum]

[kkbbcute]

Continuing from my old post in the other thread:
Jokes aside, it actually all depends, some people work for more, others work for less, others do all sorts of stuff for free just for publicity. Rates vary from place to place but in the end, getting a job you like is the most important, not a $5 difference in the money you earn, seriously.


I'm not denying that all industry professionals tend to get charged about the same; that's true in many industries as well. Nor am I denying that you need money to live. What I'm trying to say is when you find a job that you like, you don't go about scrutinizing the pay; interest should be what drives you, not the money.

Don't do a job just because someone pays a little more, because in the end, you might not like the job as much, in that case, is it worth it? Those are questions you should always ask yourself.

In this case, I'm saying that if you are allowing yourself to be more relaxed with the rates, you will find that you will soon enjoy your job a lot more as you find projects that really tickle your interest. I think you were missing that point there: To be more free with your expectations for your pay.

[blockage]

kkbbcute that's great dude. Not strictly relevant to question I was asking, but very nice all the same. Please feel free to have another go.

Btw (and I hate to be a downer, but) in my experience good projects with low pay quickly turn into bad projects -- happens every time. All too often in the commercial world, money = respect and without respect we're little more than code monkeys.

[CyanBlue]

You could always work with the agencies that feed you projects... You set your hourly rate with them, and they'll find the projects that is right for you... Just a thought... ;)

FYI, please let MODs know if you need to move the thread rather than creating another one... I have merged them...

[blockage]

Thanks. I'm getting overwhelmed by the career advice though.

I'm just trying to work out how much regional variation the in the freelance rates and trying to build up a picture of how much the credit crunch as bitten in -- not much I suspect...

[yell0wdart]

Btw (and I hate to be a downer, but) in my experience good projects with low pay quickly turn into bad projects -- happens every time. All too often in the commercial world, money = respect and without respect we're little more than code monkeys.

I've experienced this as well. I've done work for free or for almost nothing for friends, or because I felt I should "give the client a break", and every time, it's been a nightmare to deal with.

The expectation is the same from a technical standpoint. The client still wants all the bells and whistles, but you have almost no leverage in that situation. They've invested almost nothing in you, while you're investing a lot of time and energy into a project that you're getting minimal compensation for. Generally a bad idea (Open Source projects aside), in my experience.


I'm just trying to work out how much regional variation the in the freelance rates and trying to build up a picture of how much the credit crunch as bitten in -- not much I suspect...

It's been my experience that the "credit crunch" (current economy) hasn't had a huge effect on the demand for software professionals. I got laid off at one job late last year, and walked right into a contract to full-time position at another doing the exact same thing for the exact same pay. Regarding freelance/contract stuff, I've got more than I know what to do with right now. I've had to turn people away, because I just don't have time.

/edit

In this economy, if you're a software developer or a health care professional, you have little to worry about compared to workers in other industries.

[kkbbcute]

I've experienced this as well. I've done work for free or for almost nothing for friends, or because I felt I should "give the client a break", and every time, it's been a nightmare to deal with.

The expectation is the same from a technical standpoint. The client still wants all the bells and whistles, but you have almost no leverage in that situation. They've invested almost nothing in you, while you're investing a lot of time and energy into a project that you're getting minimal compensation for. Generally a bad idea (Open Source projects aside), in my experience.

That's because the client is usually over assertive because maybe you didn't make it clear that hey, you know, you're doing the project out of interest, and maybe they should think twice before ramming you with all the expectations.

But of course, there are many people out there who just want to take advantage of others or just care for themselves and are blind to the effort others put in, in the process, which I too admit is a sad reality, so in the end, whether to work for money or interest is really up to you.

[blockage]

@kkbbcute What ARE you talking about? You seem to be missing a fairly basic point, of course clients have expectations -- they're clients. If you make sure you're getting a fair wack there's no problem. If you're not working for money, why are you clogging up my thread?

[kkbbcute]

I'm saying that a person can do a project to let's say, help his friends, like yell0wdart pointed out, or for publicity or charity, which was previously mentioned, or just because you love the idea of the project a lot.

Basically, the point here is that before taking a job, consider other factors other than money, which is the only thing that seems to interest you, which shouldn't be the case of course, that's what I'm trying to say.

[blockage]

Basically, the point here is that before taking a job, consider other factors other than money, which is the only thing that seems to interest you, which shouldn't be the case of course, that's what I'm trying to say.

Right now, in this thread which is about money, yes, I'm interested in money. That's why I asked a question about money. There are other things which interest me too, but the question I'm asking HERE is definitely about money.

[yell0wdart]

That's because the client is usually over assertive because maybe you didn't make it clear that hey, you know, you're doing the project out of interest, and maybe they should think twice before ramming you with all the expectations.

It's hard to understand the circumstances unless you're the one dealing with the client. That's a big part of doing work under those constraints. It really puts (you, as the developer) in a crappy situation.


I'm saying that a person can do a project to let's say, help his friends, like yell0wdart pointed out, or for publicity or charity, which was previously mentioned, or just because you love the idea of the project a lot.

Basically, the point here is that before taking a job, consider other factors other than money, which is the only thing that seems to interest you, which shouldn't be the case of course, that's what I'm trying to say.

That's very true, but the reality of it is that development is how many of us pay the bills and support our families. It's stuff we love to do, but it's also how we support ourselves. The point the question, I think, is to establish a guideline of what's a fair rate to charge a client. Would we do this stuff for free in our spare time? I'm sure a lot of us would if it wasn't our primary means of income. :)

[runawayprisoner]

Back to the matter at hand. If it is freelance work of anything shorter than 100 lines of codes, I'll do it for free. Analysis of ideas is also for free. Analysis with demonstrations are also for free. Anything I do for free may end up being open-source with or without the client's consent, except for when there are prior arrangements.

Anything in between 100 lines to 4000 lines with under half a month of development is considered part-time freelancing, and I'm willing to take as much as the client can offer. Often less than their budget out of respect, or I offer bonuses to make them feel that the compensation is worth it.

Now anything over 4000 lines of codes with the possibility of being an extended development that takes up over a month, I'll consider it full-time and go with $200 - 400 a day depending on the complexity of the project (typically the longer it takes, the lower I'll charge), and I'll work for pretty much all day every day, and maybe weekends as well, but I don't charge anything for weekends.

When the economy gets any better, this might change. Right now, this is the most I can afford in CA. There aren't that many clients around here anymore. I get a lot of European orders nowadays though.

[Noct]

Ya know, we get these type of threads once every few months or so, and I see the same issues every time.

I'm not suggesting that they aren't entertaining/informative, but the truth is, you cannot set a universal rate of pay for a field that has such a vast range of skill to its workers...

You can get surely get a basic idea of rates by talking to different people; the problem I always see here is that nobody ever discusses what they are using Flash for, or what their skill level is, and that is absolutely paramount to the question at hand.

Anyone can set an arbitrary rate of pay and say they deserve it; the problem is that varying levels of quality/ability come into play.

For example, every time we have this discussion, somebody mentions that you can make over $100,000 a year doing Flash in NYC. Then somebody from Boise says OMG, I only make $12 an hour!

While I'm sure there are lead dev gigs in NYC that pay well over 100k, it doesn't mean every tiny little Flash job in NY is going to pay that, and it gives people the wrong idea.

I've worked in NYC; I made about $20 an hour. I've also worked in upstate NY; I made about $20 an hour...

I still live in upstate NY, and yet now, I make a lot more then that. My location didn't change, my skill set and focus did... When I started out, I was doing animation and loader bars for web sites, now I'm writing code for software.

The point is, you need to put a LOT more information out there to get an accurate response to this question. What is the job? What level of worker are you talking about? Is this software development, back end work, or making an animated dripping blood bar? Etc, etc, etc...

[blockage]

@Noct Good point. I was just reading runawayprisoner's post and thinking pretty much the same thing.

I've spent so long working for agencies and tend to forget there are a bunch of people out there doing things with Flash other than big brand marketing and/or advertising.

I doubt the things people are doing differ that much. We're building animated websites, pulling copy in with xml, serving streaming video, online games etc. That's what Flash is for after all.

I guess the rates we charge are set by the different markets we serve. In my case, that tends to be design or advertising agencies. The end clients tend to be big brands. I think this a pretty big sector for Flash devs, there's certainly always seems to be a lot of work to do and the development community is big enough to get lost in. At least this is true in London.

As far as my original question goes, I'm only really interested in the rates experienced developers are making -- say 5 years plus. As for the markets you're working in? Well it would really interesting to see over the fence.

[blockage]

@runawayprisoner do you mind if I ask what kind of client you generally work for?

[runawayprisoner]

@runawayprisoner do you mind if I ask what kind of client you generally work for?

No, I don't mind. The clients I work for are mostly agencies with specific needs. Typically, my job is user-interface development (the coding). The design is somebody else's works most of the time.

I've also made a few games... for a few people, mostly just free works for wannabe groups. There are occasionally fairly large game projects sponsored by a company, though. Most of the time a massive multiplayer board game (chess or backgammon or minesweeper and the likes). Sometimes something else completely different (hard to explain... puzzle game?), but they are still simple ideas.

Also just want to add that during my freelance works, I've come across quite a few projects with very mediocre structure, codes, and balance. Previous developers of such project were supposed to be in the industry for many years, some with up to 6 or 7 years of experience, yet what they did was still not... exactly what I'd call quality. Well, since most of those are AS 3.0, and the developers might be having a hard time transitioning to AS 3.0, I guess I shouldn't be too critical about it.

But just to say... even with many years of experience, I don't believe a developer would be good at developing, and that basing your rate on years of experience might not be a good way to do so.

Fun note: I sometimes run into AS 3.0 projects where previous developers "ran away" or "cut off all connections" because the project was "too complicated".

[kkbbcute]

Fun note: I sometimes run into AS 3.0 projects where previous developers "ran away" or "cut off all connections" because the project was "too complicated".

I'm so sure, I thought you were doing all the technical stuff, why in the world are they "scared" of the complexity when they have nothing to do with the technicalities.:confused:

[CyanBlue]

That's because some people just wants to land on the job, so they do whatever they can to impress the potential client, and then sometimes the project is more then they can chew, so they end up abandening the project leaving the client hanging in the pit... :(

[ASWC]

I know what you mean, and then they hire somebody to finish the whole thing and send you all files and ask how much that will cost. Usually you answer "I don't know but it will cost you a lot less if I start all over from scratch!"

[blockage]

That's right. 1st Law of both programming and plumbing: blame the last guy.

[CyanBlue]

HEY... Stop blaming me... :(

[runawayprisoner]

I know what you mean, and then they hire somebody to finish the whole thing and send you all files and ask how much that will cost. Usually you answer "I don't know but it will cost you a lot less if I start all over from scratch!"

I usually say something like... "I will try to study this... and renovate it as much as I can. If all else fails, I'll rewrite it all from scratch... so give me 2 days."

It usually doesn't take more than a couple of hours to "study" the mess that is left behind... unless there are more than 30 files... and maybe over half of those are not used or referenced in any way.

When that happens, though, I get an excuse to perform "cleanup" service.

[blockage]

Interesting. I guess we're also working on a different scale. My last project had 6 actionscripters working on it for about two months. Ended with over 500 classes (not including third-party code). You wouldn't want to recreate that in two days.

Actually, I've been finding the quality of actionscript code is getting much better recently. A lot of the companies I work with are now using Cairngorm or PureMVC. On their own frameworks don't guarantee quality but they can help to standardise the approach. If I come across a half-built site that uses lots of Cairngorm I'm a lot less likely to scrap it an start over. Mainly because I understand what the last guy was trying to do, but also because it's more likely to be OOP/design pattern based which is how I like to work.

[ASWC]

We were just talking about cases when a developer dropped a project and left the customer without a finished product. That usually happens for low budget projects so the scale is pretty narrow. That's often a customer with a low budget looking for someone do to a product that should cost 3 or 4 times more normally so the kind of coder they end up with is very random. That can be a very talented coder who needs more stuff in his portfolio in which case all goes well, or that can be somebody with little experience who's trying to chew on something a bit bigger that usual and end up realizing that he has no clue what to do and drop everything! That's where the customer needs to find somebody to clean up the mess. I did this once honestly because the code was working and pretty clean but refused two or three times because the code was ... how can I say that? ugly and just get to the point that you'll spend too much time trying to figure out things while starting all over would take you twice less time.

[Colin Campbell]

In Toronto, I'd say somewhere around $50-60 CAD is a rate for a decent Flash programmer with a couple years of experience under his belt. I would say this is generally on par with other places, taking into account living expenses. My experience with London is that everything costs as much in pounds as it does in Canadian dollars here, so it would make sense that freelancers there would make ~£350 a day when programmers here clear ~$350 CAD, even though the exchange rate is just less than $2 CAD for £1.

[blockage]

Thanks Colin. £350 is definitely not that far out for London. My rate is £400. I'll go down to £350 if I REALLY want the job. I've just been working (in London) with a guy from Toronto. His London rate is the same as mine in £400/day and CN$95 when he's back home. Sort of makes sense, everyone complains that London is an expensive place to live and work.

[runawayprisoner]

Interesting. I guess we're also working on a different scale. My last project had 6 actionscripters working on it for about two months. Ended with over 500 classes (not including third-party code). You wouldn't want to recreate that in two days.

Well, I'm just not big on OOP. I tend to go with "data condensing" and hash tables and the likes if I have to deal with data, rather than storing them inside a bunch of objects. So my projects are often times really compact.

Say... the current project I'm working on had over 30 files when I took it up (went through a month or two of development there). Had to start from scratch due to reasons stated below. Now it's near completion (after 3 weeks), and the whole project has like... 6 files, not counting mxml interfaces. (or otherwise, original project was like 70 files, and now it's about 20)

Of course the scale is different, but just saying... that there are different approaches to doing things. I'm just used to it this way, so maybe that's why it works out faster for me. Also just so you can have an idea, I use one integer variable instead of 32 different boolean variables. End result is much less codes for me. Which is why I can always get away with about half the size of the project.

[Colin Campbell]

Thanks Colin. £350 is definitely not that far out for London. My rate is £400. I'll go down to £350 if I REALLY want the job. I've just been working (in London) with a guy from Toronto. His London rate is the same as mine in £400/day and CN$95 when he's back home. Sort of makes sense, everyone complains that London is an expensive place to live and work.

I was actually thinking about going to London to work this summer, but it didn't end up panning out. So I'm going to Toronto instead. ;)

What's the job market like in the UK? Is it still holding up to the recession?

[rebecca16]

i really dont think there are an fixed rates for freelancers, but thanx for bringing it up! i would love to see some specific rules or regulations regulating them. it is really the need of the hour, but how and when really dont know!