Ask HN: Finding good part time freelance clients? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Finding good part time freelance clients?

2 pointsthebigjewbowski2 comments

Hey HN,

I have been contracting part time for the past few years now, always at $50-70/hr.

It recently occurred to me that my salaried rate is already at about $65/hr plus amazing benefits and many paid holidays. I’d guess my total comp would be closer to $80/hr if I added everything together.

In the past I’ve found clients on Upwork but it was pretty terrible and the clients were cheap.

I tried going on Arc and got verified, etc. but they only ever send full time jobs.

Does anyone have advice on finding part time freelance jobs at a decent rate, like $120+/hr?

I’m a US citizen, live in the US, etc. Full stack Python/Node/PHP dev so there should be plenty of demand…

Serious answer, explain this to your full time clients, and ask for more money.

Realistically, higher rates come with non-commodity services. This means relationship based- they know you are worth it, or turnkey where you give advice and make decisions for the client, instead of just doing what they tell you. If you're just delivering a commodity (and broadly I mean work that is scoped by the client), you can only compete on price and you'll always get a worse rate.

Another tactic that comes with non-commodity work is fixed pricing, where you take on the risk and upside of delivering. If you're good, you can make more money out of the risk premium, which may be worth it as a small operator (because the downside is just more hours which is manageable

Very good advice thanks.

I pretty much run the platform for my current client — I’ve been the only real developer on the project aside from short term contributions from friends I’ve hired and took it from a sales demo to just about ready to launch so far and know the business intimately. I pretty much remind myself of the CTO at my full time job.

I think I’ll ask them for a raise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com