How much do scripters charge for custom work?

Apologies if this is a little OT here, but I've had one or two people approach me asking if I can write some scripts for them. One of them is pretty damn simple (about the same degree of complexity as the flickering candle script) and I'll just point them at an OSS script that's floating around. But assume for the sake of argument that I need to spend half an hour writing it, and can probably sell the finished thing on SLX and the like when I'm done.

The other one is more complicated. They want me to write a game for them that's going to be played in public and need to handle hosts (ACLs), interaction with the public, payment of prizes and tips etc. etc. They also want me to install the finished product and of course I'll be providing maintenance afterwards for bugs and what not. I also get to put on my Systems Analyst hat by going in there and observing how they currently run their event and recommending the best way to automate it. They want exclusive rights to the finished results so I can't make any cash selling it elsewhere.

My question is, how much money should I be asking for this sort of work. I don't want to tread on any toes by massively undercutting any established scripters but I don't want to overcharge either.

That's a tough question. it depends a lot on the customer, your experience, the complexity of the task, the business model, etc. As always with business contracts, it is best to have an idea of what you would want yourself given the amount of time and effort you would be investing, but then have the other party name an amount first. If the amount they name is around or over what you expected, either accept it or play a small amount of the negotiation game to see if they'd be willing to go a little higher. If it is way under your figure, consider another project. If it is in the same ballpark but lower than you want, real negotiation takes place.

I've had customers offer me a couple hundred L$ for a detailed security system (ridiculous) or a few thousand for a basic color changing script (ridiculously high). When considering either whether to do charity work or accept way too much, keep in mind factors such as customer expectation, your conscience, and potential future business relations with that customer and others.

I agree it's a tough question in as much as I've yet to figure it out myself. Seems to me, and maybe I am alone in this, that people either pay too much (when hiring everyone else) or too little (when dealing with me.) I've seen scripters quoting rates of 6k an hour and apparently getting it (or at least acting like they are getting it) but in my own experience when applying for custom jobs if I ask for anywhere near that much (for the entire job, as I don't even charge by the hour!) I get ignored entirely. Not sure why that is, I've had nonscripter friends tell me it's because most people manage to find someone that will do it for much cheaper.

What I would do is have a conversation with the "customer" and see if you can both work out a price that would be reasonable. The customer would set the first price, then you could tell him/her if you think it should be higher or lower. Keep repeating this until you both agree on the amount.

This way, you won't discourage the customer from buying from you because of a price set too high.

One of the running rates I have seen amongst newer scripters (read that as "lacking client base" is 1000L per hour for a standalone one-off scripting project, with no guarantee of exclusiveness, sourcecode included. Another rate I have seen 3000 minimum, with extras tacked on for complexity (very subjective, to be certain), negotiated before hand- no hourly.

Keep in mind, that 1300L/ph works out to around 5 USD/ph. Most folks I have seen, if they are doing something exclusive, charge up to three times their base rate. They also write a contract protecting themselves from legal action should future works contain some of the same libraries, but put to different ends in another product, or similar, but not wholly so, functions in another work, meanwhile guaranteeing that this work is wholly owned by the client and will not be resold as is to any future client.

The next question is, how much time do you think it will take, and how much servicing time might it take month-to-month?

This sounds like a big project, so you may want to take a loss-leader model: undercharge for the initial project, then charge for the service calls, provided you think the client party will continue to have you maintain them.

First consider what your time is worth to you, how much you can learn from this job for the future, and how difficult the particular client might be with future developments.

Of course, many people see all those zeroes, and don't realize how little RL money that is. And yes, there is always somebody cheaper.

Personally at this stage I 'play' SL and see it as a challenge to try new avenues. In my 2+ years here I have learnt how to Program again, how to role-play, how to create in 3D and how to use graphics programs. Whatever I am paid to do work in SL is pocket change compared to what it cost me to be here (US$10 per GB) but the experience is priceless.
To answerer the question, if it is an interesting and challenging project, I will do it for free, if it is boring and the average person could do it with a little research and effort, I charge what I think the person can afford. (and then normally refund most of it).
But the real advantage is that when local companies want a real presence in SL I will charge a good consulting fee as it is both cost effective to them, and pays for my education in SL.
In a way I guess I see SL as a platform, and what we do in here as preparation for the future.

I charge, as a very basic rate, L$12,000 per hour of my time.

After that we can negotiate.

I remeber a guy that wanted a whole system for a house full perms:

Door scripts
Acces List
Door Lock Mode
Window tint (interior/exterior)

My rate was 5000L for the whole system full perms. He said "WOW". And then something like

"100 for the door scripts 250 for the access list, 150 for the lock door mode, 300 for the window tint"

Some persons doesn't realize the time that takes to code something like that. In lot of cases scripting work is underrated, for some reason it seems that building work is more valuable.

12.000L per hour is reasonable. This is real programming, not a game, and ppl in RL charges that for coding and much more.

I couldn't agree more, Kahiro - anyone who works for US$5 per hour needs to have a good hard think about what they're doing to themselves, and what they're doing to the valuing of everybody's skills in this real job market.

If people say "I've spent two years learning LSL, PHP and all the rest and I'm an excellent scripter - you can hire me for US$5 per hour" then basically they're saying "look, SL is a game, I play it and that's all I (or the 'game') am worth"

I never charge less than the figure you quoted, and if I contract someone else (and it's always the same person) I pay them L$14,000 per hour. This is the dignity of labour.

SL must be one of the few places where you don't necessarily get monkeys when you pay peanuts - but if all the scripters are acting like monkeys, what's the incentive to pay more?

DG

The only problem I have with that is it may be something that I have never done before and I would need a little learning time on top of the actual scripting time. I can't justify charging for my learning time, but then again, I am no where near the scripter the you are Miss Malaprop.

Yep, a tough question and one that I struggle with.

Following a suggestion from a SLU thread on a similar subject, I tend nowerdays to think and price, not so much as "rate per hour as a scripter" but more in terms "this work is cutting into my personal leisure time, and depriving me of working on my personal projects". My time, specifically my *leisure* time in SL, becomes the thing of value, the thing that a client is paying for...not a script per se.

If I can see a potential use in my own future projects for the script, or if I think it would be an interesting or fun thing to do, or think I can likely sell the same script to other clients, then I'll price it accordingly and script it in a modual/re-usable/re-sellable way.

If, however, the script is specialised one-off then the price will be significantly more. If the script is somewhat mundane or simple I'll try and direct them to a freebie version or a forum link.

When quoting a price for a script I give the price not only in Linden Dollars but also that price in USD Dollars and (sometimes) the equivalent $USD rate per hour.

I'm very wary of offering exclusive rights. In effect you are closing the market for similar work for you forever. Any price you quote has to reflect that, they aren't just paying for the coding but are buying you out of that market. Given there's not a lot of different ways to achieve things in LSL this can have serious adverse affects on your future income.

Exclusive branding of a script is a more reasonable thing to ask for.

Something else to consider is any minimum wage restrictions in your country. This is my baseline that I use for people donating for open source work. In the UK, at the base tax rate that comes out at £6.75 per hour or about USD $13 (depending on exchange rate). The other thing is the "off the clock" hours you are likely to put in working out their requirements to do the project. This stage can easily add 25% to the time and should be spread over the billable hours. So allowing for LL's 3.5% and paypal / bank charges, L$5000 is a good absolute minimum hourly rate.

Any restrictions on the code 1) reduce the amount of outside help and testing 2) reduce my ability to reuse the code, so the more restrictions the higher the price goes.

Generally offering a limited time exclusivity is a good compromise. That way you aren't permanently closing avenues of income for yourself, but the person paying for the scripts gets a clear run at profiting from their investment first.

Yep, I agree

I rarely sale the scripts full perms, but only as copy/transfer. The scripts themselves are branded in the object description (set from within the script itself) and llOwnerSay messages refer specifically to that company. Sometimes they are written in such a way to only work in prims created by the purchaser of the script. Although not foolproof, it is one additional layer of protection to retain rights over the script.

If the client insists on a full perms or modify version of the script, I assume I have effectively lost all or near all future income from the script (perhaps it accidently gets onto the freebie market) and charge between five to ten times more than would otherwise be the case.



I like this idea, thanks, and will start using it where appropriate

The sort of "exclusive right" that would prevent you making equivalent products is more of a non-competition clause. I do actually have a non-competition clause in my current main contract, but it isn't really all that significant given that almost all of the work I do under it is very specific to a particular branded build or project - nobody else will ever want me to replicate that.

If somebody were to propose that I build gadget X, similar to things I might make for my own inworld business, and hand them full-permissions versions and then _never produce anything like it ever again_, I would refuse that contract. Things which are custom versions of existing products, not to be resold in other circumstances, I have made - for instance, the New Babbage Constabulary has custom versions of my Pepperbox, but clearly I still sell Pepperboxes.

---

To be honest I tend not to take inworld contracts at all these days. When I was younger, I did, and had to deal endlessly with requests for changes and being bothered at odd hours for a total of L$1000 or so. Nowadays, if I make a modification or a new system I will do it for free or a token price or for return favours, because it interests me or the person is a friend or it will be good publicity or it is for charity or something along those lines.

Oh, far too kind of you - and there is always a _certain_ amount of learning time involved in doing anything new, otherwise it would just be a question of the time taken to put fingers to keyboard. If I have to look up documentation or research how a particular system works, or (more commonly) spend time working out what exactly a specification _means_, that is a legitimate expense.

However I do agree that for short contracts, it is a little much to charge full rate for something which would require that you spent a week learning how the underlying system worked _first_ - or at least the client will probably say "well, scripter X over there already knows how to do this and is just going to charge L$Y so I shall be hiring them instead".

Alas, those of us relying on short contracts for their daily bread do not get paid for learning in the same way as permanent employees may. (Though in practice I have found that even permanent employees can find it rather difficult to obtain training. Even if it is technically speaking in their contracts.)

It's all about balance, fair play and what people can afford. I don't create scripts but I build and in my experience with selling my builds I get more Lindens if I just say tip me than I would ever consider charging, but then I'm not here to make money but I do take what's offered because it covers my texture upload costs and I'm happy with that.

A scripter did offer to help to make a 'eye follower' script for a robot I made for a competition, the offer was for free, however I won two prizes of L$3000 each, I regarded the script as being part of the success to winning those prizes so I gave the scripter L$1000 for their help.

As a non scripter, for typical 'new' simple script I'm happy with paying L$500 non exclusive.

Moin Lum,



The first is a typical just for fun script of half an hour with the customer in my sandbox. I even do that with newbies, after teaching them how to pick money from the trees in Apoda. I normally don't charge a fixed price for simple scripts. To cite Dekka:



Its often the great idea and not the money that drives me to writing a script. And it does not matter, if this idea comes from a girl from the dancepad or a big landlord. I will write it anyway, if the idea is fun. I charge a tip of customers choice. This could be L$100 or L$10k, I don't care, as I have enough to keep my premium and my 3072 sqm mainland prepaid for a year. Thanks to the landlords who also need scripting and consulting services and who pay good tip to keep the scriptmonkeys like me happy



Now we come to the second script. It sounds to me that it requires a linux root server. Perhaps a Xen or even OpenVZ could be enough, but it requires a RL server, maintenance, and much more work than a short customer session in my sandbox. You wont get a PayPal/IPN or RegAPI for penuts from me. Even worse, while I installed a few of them, I will check your business model very close to avoid, that my programs could be blamed for your faults. In such bigger projects, its most important for me that I dont write for the trashcan. Riding dead horses and writing high payed software for the trashcan could be something I could do in RL, and I deny it. Heck 80% of RL software projects fail. I want 90% success likelihood, if I take a big SL project, eating my spare time!

So bigger projects boil down to the question: What business model does the customer have. Does it sound to me, as if they could stand it? Or are they just greedy n00bs, who read in the newspaper that a Chinese girl in Frankfurt became rich by playing SL? If their business model is solid, then they also calculated a plan for development and maintenance. SL markets are often very narrow, so I'm more happy with a realistic plan and lower L$ than with no plan of a n00b who claims to have big money.

ciao,Kephra

As a builder, I think many people are making reasonable points here. Also, as a builder of prefabs, if some people here would like to talk to me about redesigning my home controller system, shoot me an IM or e-mail at [email]gallandhomes@yahoo.com[/email]. I would like to add a few things to my current system and you may have better ways of working with what I currently have, or can simply add to it. Also, if you can give me a system that works from notecards, I would only need copy/tran rights. Just as long as I can program different houses, etc.

Thanks.

Robert Galland

My usual rate is US$60/hour, which works out at around L$16000/hour. I generally only charge for time when I'm actually writing code, there is usually some mulling over and talking time beforehand that I don't charge for.

Charging a (comparative) lot means that only clients who know what kind of things you specialise in are going to approach you, so you tend to get interesting projects and clients who are serious about it.

I say, feel free to charge as little as you want. After all, if you *want* it to be a game, it *is*. Don't worry about undercutting others. If you're having fun scripting, go for it.

Of course, if you're in this for the money, then charge whatever the market will bear, or whatever you feel comfortable at.

For me, it's a game. Most scripting I do, I give away. Early on, I did a few scripts for money, which was a great way to get started and pile up enough lindens to buy a nice skin or whatever.

If I want the responsibility and seriousness that comes with charging for my work, I'll do it in RL and get considerably more money for it.

As far as undercutting other scripters goes: don't worry about it. If you're a lot cheaper than others, you'll get all the work you can handle. And as it becomes more like work and less like fun, you'll raise your rates. Or find something fun to do.

I've just added a profile pick to my avatar that covers what it costs to hire me. The sense of it goes like this:

------------------------------------------------------------------

I work for two reasons: because it's fun, or for money. If I'm offering to do a job 'for whatever it's worth to you', I'm doing it because I think it will be fun, or to give back to the community, or because I just plain want to.

If I'm going to be doing it for money, it's work, and I'm charging RL rates. You're getting a skilled contractor, providing her own workspace, tools, equipment, administration costs, tax, health insurance and other overheads. Expect to pay me appropriately, translated into Lindens at the current exchange rates.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to take that, munge it into your own words, and put it in your own profiles.

If you're good, you can charge a higher per-hour rate than a novice, because it will take you fewer hours to do the work.

Don't forget to include a share of depreciation of equipment (ie: the fact that you'll be replacing it eventually), a share of the time it takes you to track your contracts & get your own health insurance & manage your taxes & so on, a share of taxes & health insurance & retirement fund money, a share of advertising/marketing time & costs, all the time for specifying and designing the contract program, face time with the client...

A rule of thumb is that all that overhead doubles a normal '40-hour-a-week, 9-5' type wage/salary. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Twice minimum wage is a more than fair contract rate, but good luck getting most folks in SL to spend it!

If there was one big piece of advice that I would give it would be - "beware scope creep". That particular demon can blow the doors off any other consideration

/esc

No kidding! As a self-employed subcontractor myself, as well as working for small software shops, a good software requirements spec is crucial -- and in RL, generally paid for by the customer. Good luck with that in SL!

I have no desire to work in SL as a professional coder doing work for hire should. The overhead just goes way up, when it's done right. And if it's not done right, what's the point of pretending to be a pro? Of course, I'm sure that lots of small projects can be done well on-the-fly. But I suspect a lot of "professional scripters" don't understand what professional software development really entails. I'm not referring to any of the posters on this thread, btw, so please don't anyone take this as a jab!

On the other hand, I've helped a number of people who "hired scripters" to do work, and ... well, what I've seen was generally shameful. Of course, for the ones that work, I'd never hear about them, so it's not a fair sample.

If you're a pro-quality software developer, in most cases you can make significantly more money working in RL than in SL. As with anything, the pay goes down for more "fun" or "sexy" work. In general, coders for gaming sofware are among the lowest paid per hour worked, because so many coders want to do it. And that's in RL, for RL work. Factor in the SL discount, and you're lucky to get anything near what you'd be able to charge in RL, unless you've carved a niche for yourself.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I forgot to subscribe to the thread and just assumed it was being ignored.

You guys have given me an order of magnitude to work with, (L$10K) which is what I was hoping for, as well as many useful and unexpected points.

I may have oversimplified the scope of the project. I have recently completed a similar project that I did for a friend for free (in exchange for some advertising*) and I'd estimate it took about 6-12 hours of actual coding, not to mention installation, testing and training of my friend's staff, taking their feedback, modifying it based on their comments, all the usual stuff involved in writing bespoke systems. I've also spent at least that much time again at my friend's events monitoring the proceedings looking for things I can improve and going over the logs. I was a little surprised at Kephra's comment that this is a half hour job, though admittedly I do now have some reusable code which will make it somewhat quicker this time.

The point about RL money is a good one. If asked to do computer work (be it programming or just cleaning out spyware) then I wont get out of bed for less than £30 an hour (and will probably turn the job down if it's spyware) unless it's family or close friends. Though that is negotiable depending on how interesting the project is (ie. I'm sure you could convince me to do spyware if you were offering £100 / hour )

I'll be certain to get a requirements spec. I do that when dealing with IRL customers as a CYA measure. I'd be an irresponsible employee if I didn't. No reason why SL should be any different

*Which probably wasn't the best idea I've ever come up with. Unless you're actually running the event, all the cool stuff in the script isn't noticeable. The event just runs along smoothly and nothing calls attention to it. This is as it should be but it's the age-old problem of computing. No-one ever notices or cares about the IT department until something breaks, then they are seen as a bunch of incompetent halfwits.

Yeah, most software is like plumbing. Nobody notices it unless it stinks.