#pyladies

Hello everyone! :) Does anyone here have experience with freelance community work? If you do I’d love your advice on something.

Hi ossanna16

ossanna16: I'm really curious about your question

I have done freelance work, and community work, but never together.

Do you have an idea what a typical freelance community work rate would be?

I talked to other people and they told me the rate I had in mind would be lowballing myself.

(she's gone!)

(she's back!)

ossanna16: I don't have a rate in mind.

ossanna16: I know that it is easy to under-rate ones' self.

Sorry, had to grab my laptop charger :)

ossanna16: i suspect that freelance community work is rare enough that there aren't strong norms about rates.

even for straight-up coding work, rates vary enormously.

when i was freelancing (three years ago now), my own rate varied by 50% from job to job.

So what would you suggest? Just telling them a number? Asking them how much they usually pay? I have never really done negotiations like that so I’m kind of overwhelmed.

ossanna16: I don't blame you, it is overwhelming.

ossanna16: it's pretty overwhelming, yes. My rate (for not-community, but still) freelance work has gone up over the years, and it's been other people in my life pushing me to increase my rate that has gotten me where I am.

ossanna16: I'm an old white dude, and it took me a while to get comfortable with it.

:)

I don't think there are any good answers, unfrortunately.

It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who is overwhelmed with this :)

ossanna16: oh, and btw, if you do get the rate you want, then while you are doing the work, you can constantly feel guilty about how "this work I'm doing is not good enough for this much money" :)

My partner and I have standard price list with discounts for higher commitment levels from the customer, and it is *still* a bit overwhelming when I do a negotiation.

charging for time is hard

And, yeah, "is my work really worth it?" But people keep paying me....

Is there a rule on how high you start out? Some people told me you always start with twice as much than you want or need.

ossanna16: i've heard that, and never had the nerve to try it...

I picked how much my salary rate was, and tripled it

quadruple might not have been a bad idea

aurynn: because the hours would be less?

Did that work, aurynn?

nedbat, yes

ossanna16, yes

nedbat, and because I have to deal with everything around finding work, paying for space, etc

aurynn: right

taxes, covering for slumps

and so on and so forth

Yes, exactly. *all* the taxes.

not to mention stuff like legal fees for drawing up contracts, accountants, etc

I think aurynn's is a good rule of thumb if you've no idea what to charge.

also, you might want to look into apprenticeship.community - there's a good crew of people who've started businesses there to talk to

The other surprising thing about freelance work (well, it was to me anyway, and assuming you do it what I consider "right" :) is that you end up *really working* for the hours for which you bill, and you don't bill for every hour of your work day. Which also "justified" the higher cost per hour. The client is actually getting good value, because those billed hours are *focused*.

yeah

I mean, I bill for anything that takes over 15 minutes

so answering emails and faffing around in a conversation may not get billed

Thanks for all your help! That definitely gives me a better idea! :)