Re: Do DB Developers usually charge extra for techsupport, etc? HourlyRate vs. Extras.
- From: Howard Schlossberg <howard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 18:23:03 -0800
"Mike Sampieri" <xkmorgan6xx4@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1132446761_12083@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
He gives us, for no additional charge:
-tech support. Free service contract, free tech support, past 3 years. (and he does spend alot of time with this!) -Quick reactivity to issues. -free Project Management (whatever that means) -no charges for meeting with us, in person or on the phone.
Since I have no experience with database projects, some of you might know:
-Are these freebies really "extra", or do *most* developers offer them for free? Do you think they justify the extra hourly charge?
I'm just not sure if they are indeed "Value-Added", or if it's just standard stuff and perhaps he should charge a lower fee.
It depends what you mean by 'tech support'. I always fix my bugs for free, and I may do quicky things for free (add a field to a layout, change a value list) for my larger customers, etc. I do quickly respond to issues, and generally no charge for meetings, calls, etc., depending on the nature of the meeting.
Free project management is a big one. While you may not fully understand what that means, I can tell you that about 20% of the time spent on each of my projects is due to project management -- it is time NOT spent doing actual work in FileMaker. These are things for which the developer gets no personal benefit from, but without which a successful development cannot happen. This includes meetings and phone calls, working with my developers to make sure things are right, testing, creating estimates for the client, documenting lists of requirements, researching third-party solutions, creating fields lists and screenshots and other planning documents that are primarily for the client's review/satisfaction/approval, constant communications (phone, email) during the project between me and the client.
As for the hourly rate, it's all relative. You can hire someone at $100 who does good work, but may take a little longer than the $175 guy. The end result is the same.
If you are being charged $175 an hour, you have either hired one of the best FileMaker developers in the country, or you really deserve to be getting a *a lot* of freebies. To put it into perspective, I live in Los Angeles, a city where there is high demand for FM developers and all of us are extremely busy right now. There are two or fewer FM developers in the area charging $175, 2-3 more charging $150, and the majority of other very good developers charging about $125...plus a slew of people charging $100 or less.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Howard Schlossberg (818) 883-2846 FM Pro Solutions Los Angeles, California
FileMaker 7 Certified Developer Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance .
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