The unfilled demand here is for experienced senior people, so if you can position yourself as well above average you can charge more.
This is the bracket I’m most interested in myself: people who are sufficiently skilled and experienced that you can send them a spec for something you need to build, communicate further as needed during development, and then expect to have a good product delivered when they’re done.
In real life customers rarely have the ability to write a complete and consistent spec. That’s why we have iterative development and agile.
The model I use is much more incremental, with a list of clear deliverables and expected cost. Work with customer to define requirements, write those down with estimates, agree, deliver, review, repeat. My customers see constant progress and can change direction at any time, they never owe me so much money I would suffer if they don’t pay.
If you try to freelance with the waterfall/BDUF method you describe you’ll run into problems.
Maybe. You and the customer may have very different expectations about communication.
The number one complaint I hear from my customers is the last guy/firm stopped communicating, or took days to answer emails. The second most common complaint I hear is that the last guy didn’t listen to what the customer actually wanted. Customers ask for solutions to business problems. Freelancers too often think the customer is asking for thousands of lines of React code.
Sure, though all of this doesn’t seem any different to other freelance development work. Communication has always been key in client relationships.
My intended point was just that I’m talking about the level of freelancer with enough skill and experience to get a good job done themselves and with minimal disruption or drama. That kind of person isn’t likely to be charging sub-£500 day rates over here so I’d be very surprised if they were charging sub-$500 rates across the pond.
$500/day is about $62/hr, assuming 8 hrs/day. That’s in the median range for US freelancers. You can find people charging quite a bit less on sites like Upwork and Fiverr (many of them in low cost-of-living countries). $250+/hr is at the high end, though I know freelancers getting that rate, and I sometimes get that rate for specialized or emergency work. Freelancers I know with similar experience/skills (I have 40 years programming experience) get $100-$200 per hour consistently with US companies. One friend specializes in server/network security and gets $225/hr consistently.
I find I get better-quality customers with a higher than median rate. Depending on the niche you specialize in you have to find a rate that advertises your competence without going so high you exclude most customers.
I prefer not to work hourly, and I never take on big fixed-fee projects. My niche is taking over the big fixed-fee projects that fail (as they seem to most of the time). I charge by deliverable unless the customer can’t handle that and wants to go hourly. Even when they want to pay hourly I’m giving them binding estimates for specific deliverables and tasks so it works out the same.
I have worked through a US-based agency since 2014, they take care of contracts/legal, billing and payment, and marketing for 15% of gross. They get better rates than I was getting on my own before signing up with them so it works out.
This is the bracket I’m most interested in myself: people who are sufficiently skilled and experienced that you can send them a spec for something you need to build, communicate further as needed during development, and then expect to have a good product delivered when they’re done.