I'm thinking fifty dollars, but...
July 13, 2010 10:38 AM   Subscribe

I'm doing some simple computer work for pay, but unsure of what to charge. The work involves resizing some digital images, compiling a short word document to describe them, burning them onto a few CDs, which will then be submitted for a grant. I haven't run any figures by the person I'm doing the work for yet.

He's not very good with computers, and I have the feeling he wants it done with as little work as possible on his end. It doesn't seem like a lot of work to me, so I don't want to charge too much, but I was thinking 50 dollars all-told? I'm open to any suggestions.
posted by codacorolla to Work & Money (9 answers total)
 
How many images are there?
posted by Proginoskes at 10:45 AM on July 13, 2010


And how many hours do you expect it to take? Is he paying this out of his own pocket or is it coming out of an organization's budget? Are you doing this mostly as a favour or are you trying to make a living? Is there a possibility of further work if he gets the grant?
posted by teg at 10:49 AM on July 13, 2010


How many images? How long will it take you to do everything? Do you need to buy the CDs? Is this person a friend? I'd probably charge between $10-15 an hour if I was doing it, factoring in how much extra work might be involved with the project. I'm not a computer person though, just a lady with a decent computer & Photoshop.
posted by pluckysparrow at 10:52 AM on July 13, 2010


Best answer: Or, more to the point, how much time does it involve? If you want to be generous (it's a close friend or family member) but you still want to charge something, you could do the job for $10-15 an hour. If you want to charge a more standard rate for something like this, then consider $20-25 per hour.

The work you're talking about isn't too advanced, so I'd avoid the higher end fees for computer work. This is something that anyone with a minimal familiarity with Photoshop could do. A flat fee of $50 cash for this level of task would be about right for something that took you 2-3 hours to do, I'd think.
posted by darkstar at 10:55 AM on July 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


Or, what pretty much everyone else said, above. :)
posted by darkstar at 10:56 AM on July 13, 2010


The simplest approach is to give an hourly rate. The rate you'll have to decide on for yourself. Then estimate the time for the job and include material costs.

BTW, hourly rates are the easiest for a client to understand. I personally justified my rates by explaining that time is an unrenewable resource and is highly valued by me. I never got much kickback on hourly rates.

I may have oversimplified, but this is a good basis for a start.
posted by Hilbert at 10:59 AM on July 13, 2010


Response by poster: It's mostly as a favor. I know the person from work, and I've helped him a work-capacity on simpler tasks before. There are 5 images total, so it won't be much (resizing in photoshop, burning in Nero... probably 2 hours). I also don't plan on making a career out of this - I like the extra money, but I'm mostly doing it because he asked.

Thanks darkstar, I think I'll go with 15 dollars an hour. 25 seemed like a little too much.
posted by codacorolla at 11:14 AM on July 13, 2010


If you haven't done it yet and are a computer professional, I'd do it for free for a friend. This blog post had a good point. The thing about free is that it creates nothing in the way of expectations against you later. Favors later are generally worth more than $30.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:42 PM on July 13, 2010


I wouldn't charge for that if it is for a friend. The friend should probably buy you lunch or something, but that's about it.

If it was something I wanted to or had to charge for, I would probably charge $20 an hour.
posted by gjc at 4:00 PM on July 13, 2010


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