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I am now a full-time student, but I took some time off of my degree and worked full-time as a software engineer at a U.S. tech company for a low-100k salary.

I was contacted by an executive at the company about consulting for him in a technical role, and I am not sure how much I should charge for this service. He hinted that this number could be as high as I wanted because of the value I could bring.

What's the best way of determining how much to ask for? Should I ask to be paid per hour, project, or, say, the entire summer? Are there any good data sources for figuring out the national or state distribution for equivalent work?

throwawayA49P3xH
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    Hourly or by the project is best, my preference is hourly because it's sometimes difficult to work out a fair project amount, but I often get paid on completion of the full project rather than weekly or whatever. A lot depends on how much you trust them to pay you. If not a lot, then hourly and regular invoices. – Kilisi Apr 16 '17 at 03:57
  • 2 or 3 times the FTE rate is a good point to start for contract work – Neuromancer Apr 16 '17 at 16:47

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Putting a price on a service can be very difficult to do sometimes because you need to find the right price to show the service is of quality for what you pay but also not too cheap. People will pay more if something seems to good to be true and potentially a waste of money.

Look for similar services online and try and get some free quotes to. Shop around and see what others are offering and then decide how much your time is worth. You need to price yourself based on time as opposed to general knowledge other contractors can also provide. They're paying to have you spend your time helping them after all.

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For contracting positions, my rule of thumb is that 150 times the daily rate should be the same as the annual pre-tax salary for a full time employee.

If "low 100k" means for example $105,000 before any deductions then the daily rate would be $105,000 / 150 = $700 per day according to my rule of thumb. But that's for a typical contract that would run for 3 months at least, so if they only need your services for a few days, the daily rate would be considerably higher.

Also, if you have unique knowledge that nobody else has, that would justify a hire rate. For example if you were one of two developers of a product, and the other developer just left and nobody other than you has any knowledge of the product.

gnasher729
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So, what you need to do is work out what your competitors are pricing, and use that as a rough guide. All this "price based on what you were earning before" is rubbish.

True story - after one year of work in Australia, I moved to London, looked at consulting prices there, and ended up with a salary that was about 8 times what I'd been earning in Sydney.

I don't know what this guy wants you to do, but your best bet is to look at - and I haven't worked in the states for a while, so YMMV, but look at dice.com, along with hired.com, toptal.com and just phone up recruiters in the area this guy is working and ask them what a solid salary for a very smart contractor is. Don't mention your number of years, or if you do say 5-10 (I mean, phone a few and you can use different numbers, or ask them what the range is on experience).

And then pick the median of all those numbers, that's probably a good bet.

If in doubt, think about 500/day in a small town or 1,200/day in a big city (SF, NYC).

Daily rate is always clearer and limits the hours you work (8), but if you want hours just take whatever number you come up with and divide by 8.

bharal
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