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Average hourly contractor rate for Drupal Development?
I'm doing some rough estimates for project fundraising purposes for a nonprofit organization that I work for. I do have a couple of the project phases estimated in hours by a consultant experienced in Drupal, php, MySQL, html, CSS, PDG Commerce etc etc, it would help me very much if I had some sort of standard or average hourly rate to attach to these estimates.
I'm creating fundraising presentations for the organization and I could really use some help in simply attaching some base-line figures to these project phases. There may be some customization of modules needed and possibly custom modules created. Events Calendar and Google Maps API, linking workshops to shopping carts. There is i18n and l10n work, a little design work (most of the design work is completed) and integration with other parts and pieces like PDG Commerce, QuickBooks and Salesforce. There will be 'external', independent of the Drupal site, local sub-community WordPress sites used as front doors that we'll need to build login APIs for, and eventual construction of a document files library and online forms submission stuff.
I don't imagine it's a simple project, by any means, and I'm basically an admininstrator being tasked with some project management and oversight, but this fish is gasping for air on dry land.
Our current Drupal installation is 5.0 on an AMP stack, and we're nearly done with a phase one that launches our first new site in like 10 years (an ugly static html beast) with a new appearance and front content without all the integrated registration/payment systems. BUT, I'm hoping we'll upgrade to 6.0 before the registration/payment phase begins. So I may have to add estimated hours for that upgrade to these project phases. Most of my self-education reading is books on 6.0 (Using Drupal, Front End Drupal) and I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to help with some of the content creation.
The "Phase 2" integrated registration/payment described above contains the parts with events calendar and extends through the i18n/l10n to the PDG Commerce/Quickbooks integration. My guy, who I trust explicitly has estimated 170 hours for that phase, as described here:
10hrs - Decision making, requirements gathering
60hrs - Generic internationalized event registration system w/ workshop focus; includes ability to manually add registrations with or without payment; includes ability to pay deposit, in full or a partial amount toward an event; includes PDG Commerce integration; provide a way for men to register in their own language; may not include theming of PDG Commerce templates
15hrs - Center internationalized integration (add events to center pages, etc.)
15hrs - Existing user internationalized integration (add event participation to existing user records)
30hrs - Add new registrations to salesforce.com; add/update new brother records; update existing records via caa. Note: using the Salesforce API will entail a learning curve
20hrs - localization into British English and associated cultural conventions - also debugging I18N/L10N subsystem so that future localizations go more smoothly
20hrs - "Last 20% of the work takes 80% of the time" - polish / cleanup / debugging
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Any and all input, suggestions and especially suggested average/standard hourly contract rates deeply appreciated. We're a very small, poorly funded nonprofit doing good work in the world and I'm far outside my comfort zone working late at night 70-80 hrs/week trying to figure this all out.
Thanks in advance!
Keith R Jarvis
hourly rates...
Keith,
Thanks for sharing the details of your project.
Hourly rates for Drupal service providers runs a wide gamut. My suggestion would be to just be upfront with what your budget is - I think there is a fear that if one discloses their budget then the consultant or agency will come in $1 under whatever is mentioned. However, any reputable shop should be able to provide you with justification around how they are scoping the project (as your current contractor did). If anything, his/her hours may be on the low side - I did not see training/documentation/knowledge transfer included and enough time for testing (especially for browser compatibility issues). Anyway, I know you are looking for some validation around the estimate and overall I think your consultant is being more than fair. If you "explicitly trust" them already then I would recommend moving forward.
As far as what the market rate is for Drupal services, most North American based Drupal shops with a deep portfolio are going to be in the 100-150/hr range. However, I would not get hung up on rate - for example, you can probably find plenty of consultants who charge less, but are you going to paying for their on the job training? It may take someone who charges $50/hr four times as long to do something than a $125/hr consultant. Thus, efficiency is the key. As with any specialty expertise, you definitely get what you pay for. My only other recommendation is that there is value to finding someone familar with non-profit, Drupal sites - whether its having an existing knowledge base with commonly used modules in that vertical or sharing best practices of other projects.
Good Luck,
Dave
Mediacurrent
Nothing being hidden here!
There is no budget - the idea is to get some concept of how much it will cost so that I can create a budget so that I can appeal to the fundraising folks to give me the money to get it done.
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drupal.org/services is a list of service providers. I'd likely submit a quote to a handful of those shops and try and find an average.
As stated by the other commentor, there are "shops/individuals" that will quote $25 - $50 dollars an hour and take 4 times as long to complete the project. Or they bail and leave you hanging with a partially developed site. I'd seek someone with a brick and mortar building in the country/city you reside in. IMHO, The benefit to doing so is from a legality standpoint even if the outfit outsources to another developer, you still have someone to legally hold responsible where they promise you an apple and you wind up with a lemon.
$150/hr is extremely on higher side.
$150/hr is on higher side especially considering the recession. Even if you find a local developer, make sure you get gurantees in place of him not leaving the project, finishing the project on time and be available for discussions. There is a lot of time spent post delivery on helping the client understand how to add content in drupal and manage the site and in most cases, when these hours are billed, the client does not appreciate it.
There are many companies outside of US where you can get rates from $25 to $65/hr with many years of Drupal Development expertise and US companies outsourcing to them. It may even be the case that $150/hr company may inturn outsource to $25/hr company.
Best is to cut the middle man, have a local part time project manager who knows Drupal as end user and who can train you and then find a right partner who has deployed many successful sites and can guarantee delivery and long term "24 hour turnaround" support.
You don't want to get into a situation where a developer/shop sells you a site and when there are bugs(which is common in Drupal as it could be from core or contrib) or upgrades needed, you struggle to reach out to the partner as they would have moved on or possibly are understaffed.
The poster is looking for an
The poster is looking for an average, not the highest. I would second roshan by suggesting (without any statistical backup) that the average rate would be in the region of $30-50. This would get you a freelancer, with no business overheads: rent to pay on office, travel costs and staff benefits etc. In software development using Drupal, telecommute is the name of the game and this makes it an ideal environment for freelancers.
While the US currency is strong a remote (outside US) developer can turn $40 an hour into $60-80 in their own currency, and assuming they have lower cost of living than the US, this is a very good return. The same would apply to within US freelancers living in remote country towns where the cost of living is lower than in the big cities.
Rather than working out how much the job is going to cost on the highest possible hourly rate, you should find a developer at a reasonable hourly rate who does good work and then see if they can give you a cost estimate. If you need to go away to raise the funds first and come back 6 months later, then add 20% and make sure the developer is still available in 6 months.
Passing Phase Web Development
developer rate ranges
I work both as an independent contractor on my own projects and as a subcontractor for established web development shops.
Based on my discussions with headhunters, project managers and development peers, I would estimate average Drupal freelancer/contractor rates as follows:
rate, level, experience
$20-35 USD, entry-level, 6 months to 1 year
$40-55 USD, mid-level, 1-2 years
$60-80 USD, senior-level, 3+ years
The above assumes the developer already has a solid LAMP background.
Rates driven by a combination of expertise, proficiency, thoroughness, compliance, etc. I would also add resourcefulness.
You are stating that USD is
You are stating that USD is strong outside US : I think this is not true, actually, for been paid in USD is not good because i need to convert it back to EURO.
But you're right that the cost of living is lower i some countries, this is why we can provide a lower hourly rates even if we have a great expertise in drupal.
Been a Top Drupal Project Manager one step at the time.
Rate discussion...
This is the ultimate cliche, but rates really *depend* on a combination of factors.
I would just emphasize that thier is a distinction between freelancers and multi-developer agencies. Even experienced Drupal consultants tend to be segmented in their skill set - for example, they are excellent at theming/front-end work, but may not be as proficient in module development. In essence, they started out becoming an expert in one area of Drupal and gradually gained more knowledge in others. In a full-service Drupal shop, you can loop in a combination of personnel or experts to simultaneously work on a project.
As NewZeal said, the beauty of open-source though is no one has to develop in a bubble - code, documentation, resources etc. are readily available. Keep in mind, the speculative rates I quoted are for established Drupal firms who have completed full site build outs, not freelancers.
Again, to me, the most important trait to focus on is not rate, but identifying an individual or team with a proven track record of experience.
hi
Hi, regarding that I think, we are quite capable, having good track record in Drupal based as well as other PHP project, charges for us is really nominal :usd15/hr.
Innovative resources
What we look in individual is his ability to take up challenges and innovate. This has helped us stay ahead of the game.
Most of the time clients start the project specs without taking Drupal Architect with them along the process. This results in design that is either not Drupal friendly or many features left out which could have given them a competitive advantage.
Ideally client must take someone who has got 3 years extensive Drupal experience at least during the initial spec development. They may pay $125-150/hr but it will be so worth it rather than going out in the wrong direction and then complain on freelancers, shops and blame Drupal.
Rates are always tied to skills and experience- always!
Roshan
http://www.gloscon.com
A good indicator of an
A good indicator of an individual's experience with Drupal is to click their user account name and look at how long they've been a member of Drupal.org, and their history of forum posts, code contributions, etc.
http://www.trailheadinteractive.com
Great point, Chris.
I often see an individual or entity claiming to be an expert in Drupal, but when you look at their profile they've only been a member for a short period of time (sometimes just weeks or even days) and typically have
-only posted in the Paid Services forum (usually soliciting work or promoting their services)
-never contributed any projects, patches or snippets
-never participated in any technical discussions, answering or asking questions
-never helped out a less experienced member (go figure)
This might come as a surprise to some, but many independent contractors like myself CHOOSE to be independent. I have the best of both worlds, working as an independent contractor on my own projects and as a subcontractor for established web development shops.
If the client doesn't know what they want and needs a lot of hand-holding then they might be better off going with a web development shop, which have the resources and bandwidth to walk them through ever step of the process. However if the client has a good idea of what they want and just needs a consultant to make recommendations and then execute the plan, a freelancer (with a proven track record) might be the better way to go.
It's true that freelancers typically aren't as multi-faceted as a full service web development shop, but resourceful ones are well-networked and know other developers/themers to call upon if/when the need arises.
These same common sense rules apply to everything, whether having your car serviced, house painted or building a web site.
I totally agree that rates
I totally agree that rates are proportional to expertise. Freelancers may lie to get the leads but companies mostly run on reputation. Their rates may be on a higher end but the service and trust comes as an additional add on with hiring them.
As Roshan said there are many companies in US that take projects at rate of 150USD per hour and in turn outsource the projects to companies/freelancers with extensive Drupal experience based in India at 15-30USD per hour. Whats the point in paying 10 times billing when same work can be done in less amount?
Thanks
Priyanka
Thanks & Regards,
Priyanka Jhamnani
Ebizon NetInfo Pvt. Ltd,
US: +510-295-8728
Mob: +91-9818017255
India:+91-120 - 4546843
Even if a shop outsources, if
Even if a shop outsources, if they have a portfolio, references, and management skills to back it up, the rate might be justified. I would encourage those freelancers or India-based consultants to step forward and earn the $150 per hour that they could be making. On the other hand, why would a consultant work for $15 per hour when the could work for $50 or $100? That $15-30 per hour may indicate a proportional level of commitment to the client - regardless of experience.
http://www.trailheadinteractive.com
c'mon, the consultant is
c'mon, the consultant is afterall a consultant!
Also working with consultants
Also working with consultants in other continents mean that either the consultant or the client need to stay up late for conference calls.
I mean they can communicate just by email, but that will be a pain. A lot of people do not mind paying extra money for others to stay up instead of themselves.
Hmm Interesting topic.
Hmm Interesting topic. Subscribing.