>>Hi all,
>> I've recently been offered a job to convert a company's existing FoxPro 2.6 DOS applications using 2 digit years over to something more y2k friendly. I've never been paid for my FoxPro work before,
>>and I don't know what I should charge. What is the going rate for Fox programmers?
>
>In the UK it varies from £25 to £35 per hour for normal work.
>In the City (financial) of London, then it goes to stupid money, £70 per hour!!
>
>It depends on your area, and the number of competing programmers I suppose :)
>
>
>Pricing is always a difficult issue isn't it?
>Don't ask so little you're sad you got the job.
>Don't ask so much you don't get the job.
>How to stay ON the tightrope I don't know...

I started out back in 1990 consulting after regular work hours at $25.00 per hour. I soon got overwhelmed and couldn't keep up. While discussing the issue of working too much with some guys at Devcon someone told me I wasn't charging enough. He said if you are working all the time your rates are too low. I thought about that quite a bit so the next guy to come down the lane paid me $65 per hour. From there I moved to $75 and now my latest clients and any new customers will pay $100.

Of course, your depth of knowledge dictates quite a bit and I usually offer a small business expertise in hardware (building and maintaining computers/servers) and software (NT and Novell administration, FoxPro (all variations), VBA, several forms of scripting, and finally all the web stuff.)
I guess my theory is keep the customers you have and any new opportunities should be viewed as an opportunity to increase your fee (particularly if you don't really need the work.)

John Harvey