How much do techie guys charge per hour?

16 replies
I wonder if anyone can tell me what the average charge per hour is for techie guys. I am about to 'employ' someone to do html and blog management jobs for me and we need to negotiate an hourly rate but have no idea where to start. Is there a norm?

Thanks in anticipation.

Enjoy the journey.

Mandy
#charge #guys #hour #techie
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Motley
    depends on what their duties will be. a designer can charge big bucks, (50-60 an hour) someone who's just maintaining, posting occasionally is going to be much cheaper. Do you have an idea of what you're going to want this person to do for their pay?
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  • A minimum of $40 an hour if they're doing coding and server administration, a little more in some areas, a little less in others.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mandy Allen
    He won't be writing or posting, I need someone to transfer word docs to a secure pdf with links that work, sort out html on sales pages once I've messed it all up (!), load things using filezilla, maintain my blog by adding plug ins, organising sidebars, that type of thing. It's nothing down the design route - everything is already there, I just can't do this type of stuff and have spent too many hours trying to learn it. I just want to write and leave the 'techie' stuff to someone else.

    Thanks for replying.

    Enjoy the journey.

    Mandy
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    • Profile picture of the author kellieanne
      Mandy..
      Love the spiritual site!
      I'm sure you are familiar with the phrase..
      Religion is for people afraid of going to hell, Spirituality is for people who have been there..."
      If not I'll take credit for it!
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  • I just can't do this type of stuff and have spent too many hours trying to learn it.
    That's why it costs $40/hour minimum.
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  • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
    You can pay less than $40 easily if you are in the game yourself and can verify the work. If you don't have much experience its safer to take someone with lots of recomendations and happy customers. These people do generally charge a bit more.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mandy Allen
      It's a friends son who has just finished 3 years of college doing html and other web associated stuff. I don't want to rip him off.

      Enjoy the journey.

      Mandy
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  • Profile picture of the author GuerrillaIM
    $40 is a bit much for a new grad with just HTML under his belt. He should be happy for the commercial experience to tell the truth. For $40/hour I would expect someone with a minimum of 2+ years commercial experience on top of their training.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mr Money Maker
    Depends on how good a person you hire, if you want the best maybe $200.00 an hour, if you want average $35.00 to $70.00 an hour.
    I know people who regret paying smaller amounts to save money and never have a great site or any Internet traffic, you need someone well rounded in his html and Internet codes and Marketing skills.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Diamond
      Originally Posted by Mr Money Maker View Post

      Depends on how good a person you hire, if you want the best maybe $200.00 an hour, if you want average $35.00 to $70.00 an hour.
      I know people who regret paying smaller amounts to save money and never have a great site or any Internet traffic, you need someone well rounded in his html and Internet codes and Marketing skills.
      Thanks for injecting a dose of realism. The offshore-dominated freelance sites have created some very unrealistic expectations about this.

      I've worked side-by-side with software project managers and similar types whose employers were billing their time out at $250 - $300 per hour. And the big consulting firms like Accenture bill some of their folks even higher than that. Freelancers don't go that high, but it gives you some perspective.

      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author stinkbug
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        • Profile picture of the author Steve Diamond
          Originally Posted by stinkbug View Post

          You really get what you pay for. Put an ad on craigslist and you will get high school students willing to do the work for $8 an hour, but in the end you will have to pay somebody more experienced to unscramble the spaghetti code.
          Not only unscramble the spaghetti code but also rewrite it to protect your database from SQL injection attacks, protect your site from cross-site scripting and other exploits, and make it robust enough not to crash when two or more people are using it at the same time.

          There's a huge difference between a real professional developer and an amateur.

          Steve
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          • Profile picture of the author stinkbug
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            • Profile picture of the author Steve Diamond
              I agree that not all of this is necessarily relevant to the tasks that the OP was asking about. Although when you're dealing with WP plugins, you're potentially manipulating PHP.

              I do think there are wider points to be made, not just about the distinction between pro and amateur but also about the wide variety of tasks that may come under the general heading "techie," which could mean anything from blog setup to server administration to complete application definition, development, management, and deployment. The appropriate rates will vary depending on these and other variables.

              Steve
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              Mindfulness training & coaching online
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  • Profile picture of the author goldog
    Since you're not shopping you'll need to look at it some other ways. Is this just a few hrs a week or a regular day job? What can you afford & how much value will he add? What can he get elsewhere. In this economy he may not be able to land a job for $20+/hr. Weigh all that and talk with him and set a rate to start that you both can agree on.
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  • Profile picture of the author n7 Studios
    A friend's son fresh out of college with little real world experience might only cost £10 - £15 / hr, whereas a developer / IT consultant with a few years experience may cost a lot more.

    In short - you get what you pay for.
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  • Profile picture of the author clubvikram
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    I am also an experienced php programmer with more than 6 years of experience.I have an experience of developing scratch to finish projects,customizing ready made opensource projects like oscommerce,joomla template and its extensions,tv streaming software,freelance websites,pixel selling websites,discussion forums etc.

    I charge 25$/hour,i have deliberately kept my rates competitive to grab good business in these times of slowdown.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mandy Allen
    Thanks all for your responses, we negotiated at $15 per hour.

    Enjoy the journey.

    Mandy
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