As a favor, I built an Excel model for my gym trainer that keeps track of his members and their progress. He liked it and asked me to add more functionality to it. The model is now pretty complex with VBA code, complex database formulas, custom forms, custom menus…in essence it’s a business system that he’ll use to run his business.
He wants to pay me for the work, which I don’t mind at all. The problem is that I have no idea how to quantify the value of the model.
I have two ideas:
Trade workout sessions for the work.
Calculate the hours saved by using the model, charge them that.
I’d trade sessions for the work but I still have the problem of quantifying the value of the model. If I try to calculate the hours saved, what hourly rate do I use? What time frame are we talking about? A month, a year? That could run into the thousands!
Anyone have any ideas or rules of thumb to use when trying to calculate what to charge?
I read a book on starting a business and it said you should charge 25% over what you would normally get, per hour. If you normally make $20.00 an hour, it would be $25.00 an hour times the actual number of hours you worked on the project (which sounds like a lot, from what you described). I don’t know what kind of money an excel brainiac makes, but I’ll bet it will be a nice chunk o’ cash for you!!
Trade in kind, otherwise he’ll be mad, and you’ll be left out.
When you started the project, did you expect to get paid? If so, you might have made different decisions about what/how to do things. Since I think you just worked on it to be a good person and help him out, let him be a good person back. Current Excel programmers earn a bunch of money that I doubt a gym teacher can afford. Ask yourself if he can pay you what it would cost earning minimum wage, then ask yourself if he is able to pay 3 to 10 times that…I doubt he’d be so forthcoming.
Also, did you learn anything from it, or wa sit all old hat? You can take some future value off of it because he put you in a situation that expanded your knowledge for future projects.
Hmm…interesting, maybe charge him minimum wage, and then get the training to boot. Cash and help.
I’ve done Excel work for a 6-pack, I’ve also saved someone $25,000 a year in time lost with 45 minutes of Excel work (really, some people are STOOPID). Be fair, karma will pay you in the end, and it never hurts to be fit.
If you really know what you are doing, MS Office development work with VB will pay between $35 and $55 an hour on a contract basis. It sounds like you are doing this freelance and are still learning some aspects of the trade so I would go more toward the low side of the range. If the trainer cannot afford $35 per hour+ then work out a swap with services. NEVER LOWER YOUR RATE BELOW MARKET. IT WILL ONLY CAUSE THE CLIENT TO LOSE YOU RESPECT FOR THE WORK THAT YOU DID. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT.
BTW, I am an IT professional with years of experience and several contracting jobs under my belt. I know the current rate for those skills well.
ice1000, are you in fact an IT professional? If so, I agree with Shagnasty. Call some local consultants, present them with a situation of similar parameters, and ask for an hourly rate. From some you’ll get one, others will insist on a “project cost” - which is all about THEIR overhead. It’s called price shopping, and it’s something that we Dopers can’t help much with, unless one of us from the Miami area shows up, and doesn’t mind helping out a newbie and potential competitor.
If you are NOT an IT professional, read my hijack/
For me, “small scale” programming is more of a hobby. I’ve worked in the MS Office enviroment for years with miserable operational support from IS department, and bosses who have no interest in improving efficiences by automating repetitive office processes. So I’ve learned to do them myself with the tools available to me on the desktop, macros with a little editing of the underlying vb code. But I’ve never been HIRED as a straight IT person in a 40 hour/wk job, rather as media technician or an administrative person. At several jobs now, I’ve gotten this rep as one of the few people around who understand computers as more than just typewriting-adding machines, so I did a lot of training, form design, small macros, kind of on loan from my boss, or even on the sly. And I have had many offers of outside work from my coworkers on their computers or small businesses. Nowdays (since I have steady and adequate employment) I always turn them down, or if they’re small enough, I just do them for free as a favor.
But I’m sure I have the wrong attitude. My vision is blurred, and I have difficulty seeing the difference between self-employed business professional on the one hand, and intermittent temp worker on the other. Whichever you call it, I was there, and not ready for it, at age 27, and it lasted for 13 years. And so, very possibly because I was a college dropout, early on I saw mayself as the latter.
Now I have the confidence in myself that I lacked earlier, but I cling to the stability of my 40hr job, and assured pay from a stable employer.
Me, I’m gonna work til I drop, and keep a big bottle of poison handy for when I can’t work anymore, and a living will to switch me off if I veg out!
Well, as of about 1/2 hour ago, I just finished two graduate degrees! And MBA and MS in CIS…umm I guess I’m an IT professional now!!!
Thanks for the average hourly rate. Yes I am quite versed with Excel’s VBA and the code that I built was complex. I think I’ll just stay in the middle of the range.
I did find out from them that there is a pretty good market for this type of application. So they may be my first clients until I completely fill out the application. So, after I protect the model and code and deliver it. Is it the norm to charge the same amount for ongoing support or additional modifications?
ice1000, the brother of a friend of mine made an entire career out of one specialized software application that he wrote (it was used for autobody shops to perform estimates, IIRC). Point being that the product that you created may be more valuable than the work. Here’s the tricky part: when you create something for someone else it can be cloudy on who owns it. If you really need a quick few bucks you can get your friend to pay you and your done. But you might also consider this tact:
Tell your friend that you’d like to take your application and see if any other gyms would be interested in it. Ask if he’d be willing to provide you with some free word of mouth and maybe some free gym time in exchange for your effort and that essentially he can use your software for free as long as he wants. Use him as a consultant. Ask him such questions: what would he have paid for this if he just bought it off a shelf? $500? $5000? How can he use this to save himself time and money, etc. Then set a price for your product and shop it around to other gyms. You could make a nice bit of money or launch your own entreprenurial career this way.
But you might also need to do some legal footwork to make sure that you own this now.
Oh, and I am also an IT professional. Well, sometimes I act professionally but I do get paid.
ice1000, the brother of a friend of mine made an entire career out of one specialized software application that he wrote (it was used for autobody shops to perform estimates, IIRC). Point being that the product that you created may be more valuable than the work. Here’s the tricky part: when you create something for someone else it can be cloudy on who owns it. If you really need a quick few bucks you can get your friend to pay you and your done. But you might also consider this tact:
Tell your friend that you’d like to take your application and see if any other gyms would be interested in it. Ask if he’d be willing to provide you with some free word of mouth and maybe some free gym time in exchange for your effort and that essentially he can use your software for free as long as he wants. Use him as a consultant. Ask him such questions: what would he have paid for this if he just bought it off a shelf? $500? $5000? How can he use this to save himself time and money, etc. Then set a price for your product and shop it around to other gyms. You could make a nice bit of money or launch your own entreprenurial career this way.
But you might also need to do some legal footwork to make sure that you own this now.
Oh, and I am also an IT professional. Well, sometimes I act professionally but I do get paid.
And so, very possibly because I was a college dropout, early on I saw mayself as the latter.