Whats your price?

[CEH]

After being a member on this site for a while now I would like to get some opinions on "cost of application development" I know the forum covers a wide geographic area and the members cover a wide spectrum of degrees of expertise on Access and application development. So the question is this..
What would your rates be and how would you determine your charges for developing Access applications for a business?


PS... Please include your location if not in your profile.

 

[ReAn]

After being a member on this site for a while now I would like to get some opinions on "cost of application development" I know the forum covers a wide geographic area and the members cover a wide spectrum of degrees of expertise on Access and application development. So the question is this..
What would your rates be and how would you determine your charges for developing Access applications for a business?


PS... Please include your location if not in your profile.

Im currently in my 3rd year of Computer Science in University, I work for a large corporation (Lafarge Cement) developing custom Access Databases that interface with Oracle and often use web-based extensions or interfaces.

I am most likely being paid hella less than i should considdering the vast variety of jobs i fill @ this plant, but i get paid about $20/hr. as a "Temp" or "Summer Student"

The reason i dont give a flying hoot is because my previous job was $6/hr. and this one gets me experience in my field and credentials for my Resume.

Dunno if that really helps.

 

[KenHigg]

FYI - Document your stuff real good so you'll have work to show potential interviewers / clients. You want your skills/work habits to come across as methodical and professional as possible...

 

[ReAn]

FYI - Document your stuff real good so you'll have work to show potential interviewers / clients. You want your skills/work habits to come across as methodical and professional as possible...

If I could, I would. The work I do here deals with sensitive company Information. Unfortunately what I do has to be reflected via reference, not by work provided.

This work is highly customized. However, I document my code quite thoughly because the poor fool who gets to decipher it when Im gone is gonna need it. The database structure I was given to work with was hideous, and NO I cannot reformat it. (Except local copies).

 

[KenHigg]

Could you do a sample db with a few co. name changes and a few bogus records?

(I think you lost the link in the bottom of your signature...(?))

 

[ReAn]

(I think you lost the link in the bottom of your signature...(?))

As you may have gathered, this job of mine is seasonal. That link is from over 7 months ago. I just got back, havent had a chance to remove it.

As for your suggestion, the databases are highly dependant on the oracle backend, and rely on 1000's of records to show even the smallest results. It's not really possible to make a compressed 'bogus' version.

This database spans an entire multi-country corporation. Over 30 active links to remote databases, as well as scheduled tasks on the server to keep data up to date, formatted and accurate.

 

[KenHigg]

Wow. You do have a bear...

 

[ReAn]

Wow. You do have a bear...

I know, something quite worthy of showing to future employers, but it's not quite possible.

It's very integrated, and since im not on site all year, it's self-managing, with administrative control.

However, small problems do arise, which is why im back in the x-mas season for a couple days. Right now im killing time while some automated DB structure adjustments roll through a couple million records.

Fun Fun!

 

[KenHigg]

If I may point out something; Looks like you may already have a potential future client in your hip pocket already

 

[CEH]

Thanks for your reply ReAn..........

Maybe I did not phrase my question in the correct way, or maybe people just don't want to answer. I am trying to get a feel for the market. Since MS Office is probably the most widely used software in any office in the US, I would think the demand for Access applications would be high. So lets say "Joe Blow" at office "XYZ" called and wanted a DB for his office.... And lets assume this DB would take 10 to 20 hours to complete. How would YOU price it? By the hour? If so huorly rate? Or as a complete package. And the package rate?

 

[Ron_dK]

CEH

Maybe the links below may give you some idea.
Note that the last one is from 2003. Things may have changed since then.


http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=95634&highlight=package+rate



http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=47485&highlight=package+rate

 

[Newman]

[...]Since MS Office is probably the most widely used software in any office in the US, I would think the demand for Access applications would be high.[...]

Yes, but there is a lot of programmers that can do Access databases. So, there is a lot of competition and the prices can go very low sometimes. It's not like if you could program in Cobol which is only known by older programmers and not teached anymore in most schools.

As for how much to ask for it, I'd say it's a very wide range. I know someone who does it for 120$ per hour and someone (ReAn) who does it for as less as 20$ per hour. I am in the middle of it, asking for 60$ per hour right now.

I started to build a team with partners that can program in many languages and have good analysts backgrounds. I am looking forward to ask for 100$ per hour.

I learned two things not long ago from a customer of mine. He said:
- "While cieA ask for 20$ and cieB for 50$, it may took 120 hours to cieA to do it and only 40 for cieB. So, cieB would be cheaper... and faster."
- "When I receive three offers at 20$, 60$ and 100$, I tend to believe that the one at 20$ will not be able to do the job correctly. Since I don't want to pay too much, I'll often take the 60$ one."

Is he right or not, I don't know. But if many customers thinks like this, we'd better give a price a little higher.

Let me tell you about my experiences...
The first time, I asked for 30$ knowing that, after some talks, it could dropped to 20$.
The guy simply said: "Perfect!" at my 30$ offer. I then knew that my price was too low. My next contract I asked for 45$. They accepted after thinking about it. For the last ones, I asked for 60$ and brang samples of my previous works, and they made me wait a little bit longer, but they finally accepted it.

Another thing that I did recently is getting member of an association of programmers of my area. That way, I can get more info about the prices to ask for, precious advises for many other aspects such as how to do contracts and how to become a faster and better programmer, and can use my membership in my future offers to show how serious I am.

Hope that it helps you!
Good luck!

 

[ReAn]

Maybe I did not phrase my question in the correct way, or maybe people just don't want to answer. I am trying to get a feel for the market. Since MS Office is probably the most widely used software in any office in the US, I would think the demand for Access applications would be high. So lets say "Joe Blow" at office "XYZ" called and wanted a DB for his office.... And lets assume this DB would take 10 to 20 hours to complete. How would YOU price it? By the hour? If so huorly rate? Or as a complete package. And the package rate?

I honestly wouldn't know. This is why I gave you an example of what I, as a summer student find acceptable.

 

[Kevin_S]

havent been on these boards in quite some time - thought I would pop on by and this thread peaked my interest so here's my 2 cents...

I believe that hourly rate and demand are very, very subjective depending on where you live and the field you work in. Myself, located in the US (Michigan), I charge around $50 US dollars an hour HOWEVER, this is not for Access development. I have a background of about 5 yrs working with Access (97-2002) but have since moved away from it and now focus primarily on .NET or JAVA (primarily .NET though). In Michigan, there is very, very, very limited job opportunites for MS Access development and the pay is lousy unless you happen to work for an agency that uses MS Office and wants to support MS Access. Everything local to myself (Lansing - Detroit) is mostly web with the occational client/web service application thrown in for good measure...

Not sure what you could charge for Access development here but Im betting it wouldnt be enough to live on in Michigan... Seems apparent (at least from this forum and the posts I used to read on a consistent basis when I was more active here) that the primary area for MS Access develop in overseas or Canada... Does that seem to be the case?