If you were going to hire someone, or even work for someone else, to work on back end issues such as database repair/optimization, be available if the forum (site) goes down, minor template tweaks, etc. How much/hour?
I would think you'd have to determine what minimum credentials you require, first right? (e.g, degreed, certified, applications experience, etc.) This is a great question for sure and I don't have any idea on the amount you'd be looking for to get a rough idea. I'll be watching your thread though.
I offered this service at Themes by Design. My going rate was $10 per hour. OR if you wanted my services on an on-going basis, I charged $50 per month. This included weekly db backups, repairs and optimizations, template tweaks, answering questions, etc. vB Installs were $50, upgrades were $25, mod installs $15 and up.
I don't charge by the hour, per se, rather by the project and the effort required. In that sense, it's usually $10-20 per project with anywhere from $2-15 for each task within the project. If somebody asked me to install their vBulletin forum, install a skin, and install 5 modifications, I'd do it all for about $20. That's just an example of what I have been asked to do in the past, and still do for clients. I have several clients for whom I do regular forum upgrades, patches, modification installations, customizations and tweaks. Repeat customers/clients get treated with discounts and low rates. I'd like to expand my clientèle, but that has nothing to do with this thread. Sorry for rambling.
$10/hour. I would have guessed higher. Other duties include writing custom plugins, installing plugins, things like that. So how long do those types of things take? Could you rephrase that in $/hour? edit: I don't need exact numbers, is it significantly more than $10/hour?
I charge $25 per hour, because I know if the task will take an hour, I'll be answering questions regarding it for at least another hour or two and I think thats cheap.
How do I say this nicely without offending anyone.... With the exception of David these rates are incredibly low and David is at the low end of what I would expect. I realize we have to compete with the kids out there that will toss up a vB install for $5 but wow...We have a skill set here that is worth something. Peggy too has the right idea with the install pricing, at least I think so. Heck, I get $45 hr for writing documentation and our little group charges almost double that for custom vB coding and we have a backlog of work.
No offence taken. I realize that my prices are low, been told many times. However my prices are set for helping people who live paycheck to paycheck like I do, and still make a little something on the side. It's called keeping in mind where you came from.
I would wanna do that, but I'm afraid if I start my new project will fail lol. I have certainly thought of doing something like this, but I never really thought people would actually pay for it. Maybe I was wrong.
Good input everyone. What these types of things are worth, and reality at the moment , are 2 different things. I'm already working with someone I found and it has taken me a long time to find this particular person. But we decided to get to work first and talk about rates later. I'll make a reasonable $/Month offer as baseline, with a low $/hour offer if more than X hours are needed each month. Except for the occasional MySQL burp there really is not much to do so in theory he could be considered on retainer for the most part. Our site is not very modified and works well enough. If the future is brings good things then it will be easy to offer an increase. It's a little harder to offer a cut in pay.
Not very much, if at all. I once charged $30 to complete a list of about 15 items, which took me a few days and a weekend to complete. - I don't charge much because if I did, I wouldn't have any clients. Many people have greater skills than I and charge more, so I try to do what I can for a very reasonable price.
Depends if I know the person otherwise and definitely on a per project basis.. basically the things that frustrate me more, the more I charge so I guess really about anywhere between 15-40/hr or free if I care about you/your cause more and it's not much work
Peggy, that is a really nice approach! Some of these figures are MUCH less than what I expected. VB try to charge like $150 for a VB install
They went with my offer. The next few months will require work. Assuming our site stays with v3 it will basically be on retainer/on call if anything goes wrong. Win/win for both of us. We get piece of mind and expert tweaking, they get $ for checking in or discussing database errors. At least that is the theory. Of course v4 could start to look appealing but I'm not counting on that. You people are awesome! Thanks!
