services wanted General Consulting Quote

[Chris J M]

I am putting together a budget proposal and need to find out what the going rate for FileMaker developers are.

A little background: My company is a non-profit with 50 employees. We have over 2000 members. We are looking to build a custom associate management system since the out-of-the-box solutions don't really work for us. It would be a fairly simple structure (general company information, parent and child companies) and somewhat simple functionality (labels, reports, etc.)

I know this is a VERY general question, but I'm just looking for a general quote for my report. Even if you just give me a basic hourly rate, I should be able to figure out the hours.

Thanks in advance!

[stanley]

Chris:

It may be too general a question. Hourly rates tend to vary geographically, and some developers have non-profit rates, while others do not. Depending on those factors, you're looking at an hourly rate that could be anywhere between $40 and $100.

A word of caution: beware of very low rates, and definitely ask to see examples of work. I can't tell you how many times I have been called in to fix amateurish work done by folks whose primary business is NOT FileMaker development.

Good luck.

-Stanley

[John Mark Osborne]

If the developer is any good, they won't tell you their hourly rate. That's because the hourly rate doesn't matter. What matters is the final cost. Good developers will create a requirements document listing all the features, layouts, reports, scripts, fields, etc. This will allow them to give you an accurate quote that they will stick to as long as it doesn't go outside the scope of the document. Some developers charge for this document and others don't. I would recommend finding someone who you feel comfortable working with. Even if they charge more per hour, it is likely they will finish the job at a lower cost than someone who charges less per hour.

[BruceJ]

If the developer is any good, they won't tell you their hourly rate. That's because the hourly rate doesn't matter. What matters is the final cost. Good developers will create a requirements document listing all the features, layouts, reports, scripts, fields, etc. This will allow them to give you an accurate quote that they will stick to as long as it doesn't go outside the scope of the document. Some developers charge for this document and others don't. I would recommend finding someone who you feel comfortable working with. Even if they charge more per hour, it is likely they will finish the job at a lower cost than someone who charges less per hour.

I agree with Mark. Lookk for someone that will do an extensive evaluation of your needs and then provide a detailed sscope document and give you a quote for the project with a clear time timetable.

Of course, if the paramters of the project change AFTER the quote, you may then need to get into hourly rates for the "additional" work.

I do medical and health care systems which can be quite complex and require a lot of pre-development work. All of our work ends up with a single quote, but we track the hours from the begining. THis is because there's an out cluase for each party, and if the customer decides to cancel the project prior to completion, they are only charged forthe hours and resources expended thusfar. Of course, by the end of the project, they're hours almost always exceed the contracted costs - but of course they don't pay more than the contrated rate unless it's for changes mad after the fact.