Hourly rate for freelance php/MySQL developer

[Rudebaker]

Can anyone tell me what the average freelance hourly rate is for an experienced full stack developer using php/MySQL, jQuery and Bootstrap?

 

[rward]

R700 to R 2000.

 

[Rudebaker]

Thank you

 

[Batista]

Sheesh im undercharging.

 

[Necropolis]

I suppose it depends on what sort of experience you have and what people are willing to pay.

I reckon you'd be extremely lucky to pull in R700 - R2000 an hour.

 

[Rudebaker]

Also thought that was a bit high... thought it was closer to R400 - R450

 

[rward]

At R400 you're either:
- under charging
- not experienced
- not true full stack (goes back to not experienced)
- part of the race to the bottom
- not doing other experienced devs trying to charge R800+ a favor

R400 range for a dev, sure. If you're experienced and not charging more then you're doing us all a disservice..

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Well spending R2000 per hour for an experience dev who can find, patch and release my bug in 1-2 hours is better than an unexperienced dev charging R400 per hour who will take longer and not guarantee the same results.

As a full time employed developer, I get paid more for my experience than the lines of code I write. The same should apply to freelancers. I'm lucky if I get to spend 20 hours a week writing code and my employer still pays me when I have to sit in meetings, watch training videos or reply to long emails requesting new features.

Freelancers often don't get the privilege to charge for that time and when the do, they often cannot charge for all of it. The time to investigate and quote a new job, the time to setup / context switching, the time to invoice, etc

 

[Oppiekoffie]

At R400 you're either:
- under charging
- not experienced
- not true full stack (goes back to not experienced)
- part of the race to the bottom
- not doing other experienced devs trying to charge R800+ a favor

R400 range for a dev, sure. If you're experienced and not charging more then you're doing us all a disservice..

Its a open economy. Should R400/h works for me, when experienced then its your problem if you charge R800 /h. I'll be perfectly compfortable even charging R250/h. Rather more of smaller bits than little of large bits imho.

 

[FarligOpptreden]

The development market is quite flooded in my experience. Been running a small dev shop (with 9 developers) for almost 3 years now and we struggling to charge above R550 for experienced workers (9+ years). Our best paying contract has been at a rate of R1200 per hour, but it is a very niche project with more consulting than development.

The market seems to be able to stomach rates along these lines:
- Junior dev: R200/h
- Intermediate dev: R350/h
- Senior dev: R500/h
- Architect: R650/h

Once you make inroads into clients you can negotiate for higher rates, but landing a contract always pits you against everyone and their dog doing dev work these days. Clients very seldom opt for quality work or experience, no matter how good your references are. It's all about getting the lowest rate possible.

 

[Pho3nix]

The development market is quite flooded in my experience. Been running a small dev shop (with 9 developers) for almost 3 years now and we struggling to charge above R550 for experienced workers (9+ years). Our best paying contract has been at a rate of R1200 per hour, but it is a very niche project with more consulting than development.

The market seems to be able to stomach rates along these lines:
- Junior dev: R200/h
- Intermediate dev: R350/h
- Senior dev: R500/h
- Architect: R650/h

Once you make inroads into clients you can negotiate for higher rates, but landing a contract always pits you against everyone and their dog doing dev work these days. Clients very seldom opt for quality work or experience, no matter how good your references are. It's all about getting the lowest rate possible.

Go into the SharePoint/Office 365 market and you can double all those rates. Don't tell your workers though

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Go into the SharePoint/Office 365 market and you can double all those rates. Don't tell your workers though

We're already doing Java/MySQL/Oracle, .NET/MSSQL and MERN stack development. I guess adding more MS products to the list won't hurt. Just need to get the clients... Potentially have an AX client on the books in the near future.

 

[abvrnd]

As someone who employs developers on a regular basis:

Full stack developer, long term projects 160 hours / month : R180 - 230 / hour. If a developer hits their hours, they get 230, if not, 180.

Short term projects up to 20 hours: R300 / hour. Generally this will be to lay down a foundation that my regular developers will work on.

R700 - R2000, large corporates will definitely pay these prices, but not a long term solution for small to medium sized businesses.

At present, for blockchain related work, the top guys in the US charge $300 / hour.

At the end of the day it boils down to what someone is willing to pay and not what a developer thinks they are worth.