What's the standard industry on pricing Access work? (1 Viewer)

[bigalpha]

So I'm on a contract and Access work is not in my scope of work, so it's some extra I do because it makes life a little easier.

As part of my employee review with my manager (not the client), I'm including the Access work that I do and would like to include an estimate of how much money I've saved my client since they don't have to go to an outside contractor to create the databases.

So how do you estimate the cost on a database build, or on creating new reports, etc?

TIA

 

[plog]

So how do you estimate the cost on a database build, or on creating new reports, etc?

Capitalism 101: The most someone will pay me for my time.

And with this "client" it would be through the roof. Why are you having an employee review with a client? Sounds like someone is screwing you on a 1099.

 

[bigalpha]

Capitalism 101: The most someone will pay me for my time.

And with this "client" it would be through the roof. Why are you having an employee review with a client? Sounds like someone is screwing you on a 1099.

Sorry, my post may have been misleading. I'm not doing an employee review with the client, rather with my supervisor. I wanted to include how much I'm saving the client, though, in database creation/management costs since I'm doing it in-house.

I work for a consulting business that has a government contract (I'm not on a 1099) so I can't go directly to the client to see how much they've spent on other database projects through other contractors.

 

[plog]

Still ambigous. Who does your supervisor work for? The Client or Your Company?


While The Client will love to hear you are doing the work of more than 1 person, Your Company will not. That's how Your Company makes money (by placing workers with The Client). The Client's gain is Your Company's loss and vice versa.

 

[bigalpha]

Still ambigous. Who does your supervisor work for? The Client or Your Company?


While The Client will love to hear you are doing the work of more than 1 person, Your Company will not. That's how Your Company makes money. The Client's gain is Your Company's loss and vice versa.

My supervisor works for my company. The client doesn't have a hand in this performance rating (it's illegal). I work on-site doing other work and just happen to be savvy enough to figure out Access.

The client, in this case, is forced to use a separate company for any database work and cannot use my company for database work (my company doesn't provide anyways) even if they wanted to.

In essence, the client is able to save money by keeping our contract around since I'm providing database support (client won't need another contract with a different company). So I'm adding value to my company's contract by providing (for free) immediate database support.

 

[projecttoday]

But you do not provide that service for free. You are being paid.

 

[bigalpha]

But you do not provide that service for free. You are being paid.

Technically, DB work is not in my scope of work and my contract is deliverable-based so it's actually a free product the client is getting from us.

Regardless of any of that - back to the original question: how do you come up with pricing for DB work?

 

[Mihail]

While it is possible to silently subscribe to a thread, it is also possible to tell something, isn't it ?
OK. I'll tell you the Edison's story (not all, of course, just the story where Edison make first money as inventor).
His boss ask Edison, in order to buy the invention, how much money must to pay.
Edison thinked: 300... too less , 500... too much.
So, his answer was: How much you pay ?
40.000 (USD) was the answer.

Good luck !

PS. Hope you understand the idea because my English is.... "no comment"

 

[bigalpha]

While it is possible to silently subscribe to a thread, it is also possible to tell something, isn't it ?
OK. I'll tell you the Edison's story (not all, of course, just the story where Edison make first money as inventor).
His boss ask Edison, in order to buy the invention, how much money must to pay.
Edison thinked: 300... too less , 500... too much.
So, his answer was: How much you pay ?
40.000 (USD) was the answer.

Good luck !

PS. Hope you understand the idea because my English is.... "no comment"

Sorry, I'm not sure I totally understood...

 

[plog]

I think he was agreeing with my initial comment--the most you can get is what you should charge. Edison priced his invention on what he thought he could get--nothing else.

 

[bigalpha]

I think he was agreeing with my initial comment--the most you can get is what you should charge. Edison priced his invention on what he thought he could get--nothing else.

Except I don't even have the slightest clue on pricing DB work at all. Do you price by the hour, by the project, by the report, etc.

 

[ButtonMoon]

Except I don't even have the slightest clue on pricing DB work at all. Do you price by the hour, by the project, by the report, etc.

I suggest you price by the hour or day unless you already have an established relationship with the customer for that kind of work. Per day pricing normally gives you the most flexibility and the best chance of estimating and delivering to expectations.

 

[Mihail]

My point is:

Say to the client: I can do THIS.
Then ask he: How much you pay ?

My experience said that you will gain more than you expect.

 

[bigalpha]

I suggest you price by the hour or day unless you already have an established relationship with the customer for that kind of work. Per day pricing normally gives you the most flexibility and the best chance of estimating and delivering to expectations.

There is no established relationship in regards to DB work. Is there a typical going rate or industry standard rate?

 

[plog]

Except I don't even have the slightest clue on pricing DB work at all. Do you price by the hour, by the project, by the report, etc.

Do it however you want, you are missing the point: Price has nothing to do with anything.

A 2015 Lamborghini Gallardo costs about $260,000. Why? It's scrap value is about $1,000. It gets horrible gas mileage. It's not practical to drive in rain/snow. It looks pretty cool, but is that worth $259,000? The reason a Gallardo costs $260,000 is because people will pay $260,000 for one. End of story.

Now, here's how you apply that practically. Make up a metric ($125 an hour, $50 a report, $75 a query, $2700 per complete database, etc.) and apply it. Add it all up and then take a sniff. If it smells too high, lower it; if too low, raise it.

Economics is witchcraft.

 

[bigalpha]

My point is:

Say to the client: I can do THIS.
Then ask he: How much you pay ?

My experience said that you will gain more than you expect.

In my case, I'm working for a government client so I can't go directly to them this way, so I'm stuck without knowing how much they've paid for prior DB projects.

 

[bigalpha]

Make up a metric ($125 an hour, $50 a report, $75 a query, $2700 per complete database, etc.) and apply it.

This is the part I was trying to avoid. I didn't know if there was a 'usual' rate or price for this kind of stuff. For the simple reason is that if someone questions what I come up with I have something better than "I made this up" to say; e.g. This is typical pricing.

 

[CJ_London]

DB work is not in my scope of work and my contract is deliverable-based so it's actually a free product the client is getting from us.

You say you are providing the work - but the client is paying your employer for your time so they are still paying. The relationship between what your employer charges your client and what it costs your employer to support the contract are pretty much unrelated.

If you did not do this work then there are a number of scenarios (there may well be others)

a) you would spend less time there so your employer would charge the client less. Depends on the contract
b) you haven't got enough work to do for what your employer is charging the customer.
c) the fact you are doing this work 'foc' helps you employer to keep the contract.
d) if you are working into the wee small hours to help the client - get a life
e) your customer would have to sub this work out - which I guess is what you are trying to do is estimate what is the cost of doing this?

Simply - there is no standard pricing. Suggest you visit one of the websites that provide an arena for potential customers to contact developers. It comes down to what the customer is prepared to pay and the willingness of the developer to work for that rate.

Here is an example

https://www.odesk.com/o/profiles/browse/skill/microsoft-access/

You will find a wide range of developer prices and abilities.

An expert developer may take a third of the time to deliver a project over an inexpert one which will have an impact on the overall cost.

As far as contract rates are concerned (i.e. what a customer is prepared to pay), in the UK, these vary from just over the minimum wage (circa £50/day) to perhaps £700/day - the average is probably between £200 and £500/day and is often wrapped up with the requirement for industry experience and the ability to work with other systems, people skills etc. You also need to take into account who's equipment you are using, travel costs, who owns the rights to the development etc.

To price by form/report etc., how complex is the form? is the data readily available? etc. without knowing these things, it is anybody's guess.

If you are talking about comparing yourself with solutions developed on SAP, SFDC, etc then another factor from the customers perspective is ongoing support - their position on this is probably much more important than the cost. They are generally not too excited about a solution that is at risk of being unsupportable in the event the developer gets run over by a bus. Nobody gets fired for spending £1m on a system that is an industry standard.

Both Plog and Mihail are right - but where to start with a number? One suggestion is to take your salary as an hourly or daily rate and multiply by 4. Another is to take your employers chargegout rate. Both are reasonable guesses that your employer can relate to. To find out what a 'database support' company charges is not viable, tho' you may find some headline rates out there if you google 'access support' or similar.

 

[bigalpha]

Thanks for the reply.

In my case, I've built some databases to help with day-to-day operations. So I was really looking more for your option 'e': how much would it cost for my client to sub-contract the database work out.

Considering that there is no standard for pricing, I'll just estimate a total number of hours worked and generate a $/hr number.

Thanks for the help!

 

[CJ_London]

how much would it cost for my client to sub-contract the database work out.

Your question should be

how much would my client pay to sub-contract the database work out.

And to your supervisor you would say

'This client would be prepared to pay XXX for this work'