money for a flash job

[GeoKureli]

I was offered a job and i don't know how much to charge for it. This is the project: basically he takes places with a lot of TVs like buffalo wild wings and allows them to be controlled by a single remote. but the remote sucks so he wants me to make a flash interface that is easier to use. don't forget most of this is already done, I'm just replacing the remote. I've been given a 2 week deadline and i don't even know what to charge!

[EvanHayes]

i programmed a closed captioning system for the bills in vb, for 2 grand and a 27" widescreen monitor. that was a shit load of work tho and involved hardware so depending on the size of the coorperation. 100-800 tops.

[GeoKureli]

damn, you got 2k! that kicks ass. and thanks this is already higher than what i would have thought. also i forgot to mention that this goes further than the two weeks. thats just the deadline for a working beta. I'm going to stay on to polish it up afterwards and probably longer for maintaining of the code and updates or something. He also said that it possibly can be an hourly pay.

[GustTheASGuy]

Doesn't matter what would be fair, ask like $3k and make sure you sell it. :>

[Musician]

Ask for more than you want. Then "settle" with him for less if he doesn't go for it.

[DashDingo]

At 12/15/08 06:55 PM, sk8more wrote: 2 grand and a 27" widescreen monitor.

I made a program that basically streamed a middle school's homework to students desktops, made like $3000. It's amazing the shit you can make in VB and sell for mad cash.

[GeoKureli]

damn gust your even smarter then you were before.

[jmtb02]

At 12/15/08 08:18 PM, ImpotentBoy2 wrote: damn gust your even smarter then you were before.

His intelligence is on a logarithmic curve. It's completely dangerous.

I would charge based on what's involved. If there's a lot of backend, take that into consideration since front-end and back-end is more than enough for two people (at times of course). Also, hourly is sometimes a bit shakey so I would charge flat rate.

Since you are working with prebuilt code and stuff I would charge less. If it's minor tweaks don't charge much at all (like $25-100 or so if it'll only take you an hour) and then work your way up based on how much work it would be.

Remember that if you oversell you'll be facing him going to someone else, so don't jump to too many digits.

[GeoKureli]

At 12/15/08 08:25 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Remember that if you oversell you'll be facing him going to someone else, so don't jump to too many digits.

even though i doubt he can find someone who can do it in time i really don't plan on pitching anything rediculous. I'm just afraid of saying something too low.

I appreciate the help but 100 - 800 is still a very wide range. I still dont know what to say exactly

[EvanHayes]

from what i understand 500 is reasonable. and if you stay cheap it may open up jobs in the future

[Luis]

Have you done any similar projects in the past? Having done something even vaguely similar will give you an idea of how many hours of labor you might need. You could also guesstimate how long you intend to work on it throughout the two weeks. Like lets say you plan to work on it 5 days a week for about 3 hrs a day. ok so you have about 30 hrs worth of labor. So charge for that. Lets say you were going super generous, and you figure based on your last part time job, you made $10hr.... ok so going with that rate, a $300 quote would be reasonable.

Personally I'd say thats quite low for an hourly rate for dev work. I mean youre not sitting behind a cash register punching buttons... youre doing actual thought and execution.

But anyway for the sake of examples, ok so you quote $300 for 30 hrs of labor. So now you know how long you have scoped on the project.. you treat it like a job and you try and track your hours accordingly. In the end, if you find that it took you under 30 then that usually would tell me that youre worth more than you think. This is hard to assume without going through a few projects of underscoping it tho. I mean who knows maybe this project was a fluke. If you find that you are consistently finishing well under your quotes, i'd consider raising your hourly rate and shaving those hours from your quotes some. Maybe next time you work at $15/hr and you quote for 25hrs of labor.

After awhile you'll find your sweet spot. And after youre more experienced youll naturally be able to accomplish more tasks in less time and so your hourly rates and value will rise.

Now if you find that you went over the 30hrs, then you lost money. It happens sometimes and thats okay, although you really want to avoid that if you plan to do freelancing on a serious basis.

I dont think $500 would be totally unreasonable, if you have solid research onto how you came to that number.

I wouldnt highball it unless you have a good backgrounnd of past happy clients. You might occasionally get someone to bite but its harder to get lucky like that if you have no 'street cred'.