Hey guys i am a jr. programmer and i’ve been working in the industry for about a ear. I have only recently begun performing contract work in the last few months and to be honest I have a very hard time understanding how much i should charge, how much other engineers charge for their services, and i guess what my salary expectations are in a genera market value sense ( not sure if I am more expensive, less expensive, or on par with my peers) . So I was curious if anyone had any sort of Idea or suggestions on ways I can estimate just how much my services should cost realistically?
I already tried the game developer salary survey but any other resources would be helpful!
Well… in fact all depends on what services you offer and what the demand for that service is.
If you’re a highly specialised fellow then you might charge more (ie. like SAP consultants do…). If you’re more a generalist, then you’re rates might be lower.
It also depends on the experience you have. 1 year of professional experience isn’t much, but it’s more than none
The number of (released) projects you’ve been working on is another factor. The more projects you’ve worked on, the more experience you get on different topics. If the projects differ from each other, the experience is broader. I put released in parenthesis because working in the game industry might result in more canceled projects than released ones.
The country you deliver your services to is something to consider also. You cannot charge as much to a customer in a country with a low overall income level than to a customer i.e. in the States.
An additional parameter that you have to take into account is the duration of the contract. A long lasting contract might be worth charging less because you don’t have to spend time acquiring a new contract. A short lasting contract might be worth charging more because you know that you’ll need 1-3 months to acquire a new one.
Taking my own case into consideration, I have 17 years of professional experience in- and outside the gaming industry. Dependent on the way you count it, I have done between 12 and 16 projects in various positions from Jr. Programmer to Project Manager.
Even though I have this much experience, I have to adapt my rates dependent on the industry I work for. I can charge up to 50% more outside the gaming industry. Companies usually have better planning and experience with developers not working on site. Re-discussing the requirements is generally easier outside the gaming industry because they’re used to adapt plans on a long term schedule (usually the projects I’ve been working on outside the gaming industry leads to software that is used for the next 15-20 years).
In the gaming industry I charge less, but I keep an eye on the definition of the requirements and/or the work load (because the gaming industry companies might not adjust the payment if your workload changes or the requirements change). Dependent on the project itself and the things I can learn doing that project, I raise or lower my income bar.
So all in all, there are so many parameters that can play a role when determining your own rates.
$25.00 an hour is not unreasonable depending on the clients and the work they need done.
Make sure what they need done you can do and do well and efficiently. Nothing worse than taking on a job you cannot do and screwing up your potential clientele because previous employers felt you are incompetent.
Quote them reasonable hours you feel you will require to perform the contractual job and spend much time coding and learning to code better.
thanks all of you I really appreciate it, now that i’ve gotten comfortable with programming in Unity i have only just begun to really consider the actual worth of my development time . I appreciate all of your answers and would love anymore suggestions!
Determine the number of hours available for work that month.
Multiple by 12 and give or take some hours, ie: Take off some for holidays, emergencies, random shit.
Estimate how much money you need to earn from it that year.
Do Money Needed/hours.
Gives you the basic minimum rate you will take with some margin, it shows how much you need to make per hour to survive.
Then use this as a basis for each job and edit it, if its a loyal customer take some off, if its a complex and messy job add some. Each job should be taken on a case on case basis.
