How to determine charge for freelance project.

Hello everyone,

I am Unity 3D developer since 2015 with a day job as game developer but I wanted to pull some extra income
So I did some freelance work on this project . All I did was programming and game play since art, animation and music was already created by the owner. It took me like 50-60 hours to create entire game. Game is one tap type game with 10 levels. Link below:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gamazon.eyeschal

So my question is how much should I have charged for this project? Also, how to determine charges for these sort of projects because I don't want to overcharge or do it for very much less.

 

"Your desired hourly rate" multiplied by "your expected number of hours".

It is a decent guideline for situations when your sense of justice (i.e. conscience) conflicts with your inner hamster (i.e. greed and/or desire to profit).

 

Well, Here people just don't work on hourly rates. I didn't even receive any upfront payment for this, But I want to know what to expect since I have never done a freelance work before. So let me put it straight forward, How much you'd charge for this project ?(If you're unity game developer like me for about 2 years)

 

Really? Almost every rate is calculated in this way even if it is quoted as a fixed price. Your product is your time so you need to find out what that is worth (see what other people of similar experience are charging per hour) and then take a look at the project and do what @neginfinity said, multiply the number of hours you think it will take by your rate and that is roughly what you want to charge.

If it is not possible to work out how many hours you think it will take to develop, due to vague requirements for example, then the only real way to bill for it is on a time and materials basis, which is literally charging by the hour.

 

Ok so I guess I kinda didn't made it that way but sure from next time I 'll charge per hour. May be 20-25$ / hour. ? May be little bit more. How much you charge for freelance work per hour?

 

It depends a lot. Somewhere between your minimum threshold and the maximum amount that you estimate the client would pay - which can vary a lot. Don't be afraid to bargain a little and start with a price that's fairly high in your range, the client knows full well that money is important to you and that's perfectly fine since it's important to them as well.

In terms of estimating the total cost of a project, conventional wisdom dictates that you estimate the number of hours, multiply by your hourly fee and add a percentage for unexpected things. The only way to estimate hours is to have done a few projects already, or if the project is already partially complete, try to get a chance to look through the codebase (you'll be glad you did).

Non-conventional wisdom dictates that you should charge for the value that your think the client will get from you. For example, if you are an artist and a programmer and a shader programmer to boot, and you can do literally everything that the game requires to get it finished, you'd charge a lot more and make it clear to them that you're all they need to get the whole thing done. They then don't have to spend time looking for other freelancers, managing the merging of all the different bits of work, paying for the 'capital costs' of multiple freelancers such as the time spent familiarising with the project, etc.

In the end, I think the best formula for how much you charge is "somewhere between the minimum you'd be satisfied with, and infinity, depending on the client".

 

If you are only doing this part time, you might be able to cut the costs a bit, but this is how you would calculate it if you were doing it full time as a business:

Start with your own hourly wage. This is what you'd expect to earn in your area if you were employed in a similar position. Now double this. This is the cost of paying you this salary as a company, including things like vacations, insurances, bookkeeping, software licenses, hardware upgrades. Now double it again. This is to insure you can handle downtime between contracts, you're not going to have work all of the time. This is approximately what you need to be charging per hour.

Now you make modifications to this based on the project. If it's a long project, you have less downtime, so can charge less. If the client is in a rush, you can charge more, etc.

 

I'd say it depends a lot on skill and your own standards. Usually contract/freelance work like this should pay more than average, since it is not a steady gig and you are essentially using your spare time to do it. You should set an hourly wage, an expected time frame and then some goals you have to fulfill in order for the project is complete - if you do that, you basically have your price. It is also important to make sure that the agreement covers exactly what you need to do, and to make sure that anything above that, is not covered within the agreement and can potentially add to the total cost. Once you get that in writing, you are good to go.

 

Like I said.

My hourly rate * expected number of hours. Or daily rate * number of days.

Hourly rate can vary from $5 to $50, depending on freelancer's location, skill and task. USA based freelancers can easily charge $25 per hour, non-usa based, may charge less depending on their location, availability, difficulty of work, etc.

Basically, it is matter of picking a number you're comfortable having at the end of work day.

 

Assuming a skilled developer with reasonable experience under their belt, $50 sounds really low to me. When I used to do contract work the rate was significantly higher than that, and I've also seen others around here suggest rates much higher than this one.

Again, that's for experienced developers. If you're only two years in then don't expect the same level of income.

A general rule of thumb I've heard (I haven't tested this to see how the math works out long term) is "desired salary / 1000", which is a rough guide to estimating with regard to the stuff that @steego mentioned. It is rough, though - where I'm from salary varys a lot between cities.

 

I think I'd only trust somebody who told me their hourly rate was $5 a bit more than I'd trust somebody working for free, so there's that too.

 

Good luck finding people willing to pay more than $45 an hour for Unity development. I've done Unity contracting on and off for many years, and even with my extensive experience with Unity and other software development, I've yet to find someone willing to pay more than $45 US per hour, while most only willing to pay up to $35 per hour. Anything quoted around the $60 mark on a project is promply ignored.

Hence I hardly bother anymore, web dev pays much more.

 

Have you actually ever landed a long contract that paid at this rate? Online sources list average salary for a senior developer at $31 per hour. For the office work, that is.

 

I don't know what you'd call a "long contract" but yes, I have had clients give repeat business of significant projects at rates much higher than your suggested upper end. @Meltdown, most of those were using Unity, as well.

Salaried office work is not at all the same thing as freelance contract work. See @steego's explanation as to why charging your hourly salary isn't appropriate.

. . .

Something else that really needs to be considered here is "risk". If something goes wrong then who is liable for what?

The vast majority of this should be covered by your own diligence (only taking work you know you can do, properly negotiating contracts, having your insurance in line, having robust and reliable systems and processes, etc.), but there will still remain factors outside of your control from time to time, and your rate over time has to provide you the time or resources for occasional recoveries from these things. To be clear, this isn't about being greedy, it's about making sure you can get the job done - if you don't have wiggle room to cover risks that go the wrong way then it's not just you who gets in trouble, it's also any clients relying on you.

 

My parents briefly looked into starting a cleaning business and one of the things companies who would employ you wanted was for you to have insurance in case something went wrong that caused damage. Is there an equivalent for developers?

 

Yes, you can get professional insurance against this kind of thing. I'd recommend talking to an insurance broker about what you do, where your risks are and what type of cover best addresses your needs.

That's actually only a part of what I was talking about, though. Lets say that a project is estimated to take 400 hours, but actually needs 480. If you're salaried then it's up to the employer to either cover the other 80 hours (some may be "overtime", but not all), where if you're a contractor then it's up to you. As a contractor this isn't just 80 hours you're not getting paid for, it's also 80 hours where you can't be working for someone else and all of the flow-on effects that may entail.

 

Few months long. 3 months, for example.

 

Yes.

Edit: Though to be clear, once again, they weren't paying for our hours/days/months. They were paying for results.

 

3 month contract, 5 days per week, eight hours per day, over $50 per hour, meaning summary cost over $24000?

 

You're checking my basic math skill, now?

 

Before taxes. Before business expenses. Taking into consideration the costs of living (he's in Australia if I'm not mistaken).

 

$24k for a team isn't even a 3 month continuous work duration before those things are considered.

Though that's a part of my questioning what a "long" contract is. Sometimes you'll do a few weeks worth of hours for someone spread over months. Other times you'll have a team working 100%+ for a particular client to the exclusion of all else for a short period. Usually it's somewhere in between.

 

Not sure what area or role that is, but that is very low, especially for senior. And if you are talking specifically engineer... that is barely entry level. That is like turn of the century monies. (US, west coast)
Not getting into specific numbers, but >$50hr for an experienced developer (not art specific) for contract work should be easy. Heck, even for a staff position, that is just barely 6 figures. (again... west coast, us).

 

where do you live.. India?

In my previous job, we would hire contractors with specialization for up to 300$ an hour... with weekly to monthly based contracts. Granted this was through an agency, and those rates were somehow considered reasonable... but still, the idea of people charging only 25$ an hour for contract work just screams over-seas from here in the US.

 

Animators?

 

Yeah I'm contracting for a heath insurance company at the moment and the agency I was recruited through had a compulsory policy for all contractors through them must have liability insurance, either through them, or with another company, covering certain aspects such as data loss and security breaches etc. It is charged at $1 per working hour.

EDIT : Urm.. I just realised I necroed this thread