i've been in the industry as an installer/programmer for over a year now. i haven't freelanced in the past, but an oppotunity is presenting itself in that i might go freelance for at least one small programming job. what do you freelancers charge for how much experience/cerification? also, how do you rate programming for remotes?

iz...

that's about as open ended a question as it comes...

what kind of remote/systems SPECIFICALLY are you thinking about freelancing?

Hoe much REAL programming experience do you have in your over a year time frame...could you wirte complex Crestron or AMX graphical interfaces...could you program anything to do anything...have you been a programmer ELSEWHERE?

I charge $95.00/hour for pronto/intellicontrol, etc...

I charge $135.00/hour for super advanced pronto/Crestron etc...If I need something REALLY special...we go to a dedicated programmer who charges $225.00/hour...and he could make a crow sing like a songbird! Don't use him often though, as we've learned most of his tricks!

One year in the industry, regardless of book knowledge, would doubtfully command any rate close to this!

avdude

not to go off-subject (ok, maybe) but by "advanced pronto" do you mean prontopro? ipronto? as far as crestron/amx goes, i haven't gotten my feet wet in that yet. in this area (Vermont), there's really no one else i know who does anything close to this. (which oughtta bump up my price, correct? :p) There's also no market we've found yet for $5k worth of just control devices. it may be posible in the next year though where i'll be getting into it, either a little, or heavy-duty. depends how out large projects go and what they lead to in terms of word-of-mouth

no...that's not what I mean by advanced pronto...what I mean is that you don't just spend 2 hours plopping standard buttons in, but you spend two DAYS building custom buttons, frames and fetures. You program in all 400 CD titles and then make little scans of the cover art to go with all of it....or maybe you program one pronto to do 4 different systems...that's what I meant there....

you better check your market again, and look through the finders list on the CEDIA website. I chose Montepelier for the City, with a radius of 200 miles reference "no one else i know who does anything close to this"

seems the words Crestron, AMX and Elan are pretty common in a 200 mile circle around VT...and with Crestron's corporate headquartes just down the coast in NJ, I would imagine there are ALOT of people doing it!

In one of my classes at CEDIA this fall, I was told that, on-average, for every ONE member of CEDIA in a given geographic region, there are TEN non-member companies (legit and trunkslammer alike). That seems high, but I can tell you in Denver, I can't drive five miles, in any direction, on any street, without seeing a van, truck, subaru or gremlin that doesn't have the words audio/video, or home theater on it..

There is alot of competition out there, everywhere.

Price yourself competitively, but fairly to yourself and you customers.

Make sure your reputation and education/experience will command the rate you charge.

If you get that big job, and the customer orders 20K worth of Crestron gear, then you should know they probably have friends elswhere that have the same stuff...and your new clients are going to want YOU to make theirs work bigger and better, or thy're gonna hire the company that did their friends..

good luck

avdude

Izakary,

Maybe I'll be your first customer. I am looking for someone to program my ProtoPro 6000. I had one guy that was going to start in Chicago but his computer went down and he thinks it's going to be a while. He was going to charge me $300 for simple, $350 for a few things added and around $400-$450 for a personalize front page, bitmaps, and to make it look cool.

If that's around what you were thinking I would like to discuss further. I am in San Antonio and he was going to e-mail files.

Thanks
Jim

I just did a job on a ProntoPro 6000 today. what exactly are you looking for? How many components, etc? Let's talk.

hey, this is MY thread! go create your own customer base ;)

an a/v gremlin...not bad :D

yeah....that was REALLY lame!

email me with details if you'd like to:

[email protected]

i check that much more than i check this forum (twice a week :p )

what, the gremlin? i thought it was a cool idea!

no the blatant attempt at sharking some biz....

It is definitely NOT my intention to "shark" his business. A little wine after work and I tend to get right to the point! If Izackary does not do Pronto programming than I am offering my services. To answer your question Izackary as a freelancer I charge $50-$75/hour for simple Pronto/RTI work (usually totals $150 per remote). More extensive programming gets into the $300-$500 range. I charge approx. $100-$125/hour for Elan Via/keypad programming. Sorry if I offended anyone with my previous post.

This message was edited by Chad Otis on 12/18/03 09:57.

none taken here, man :)

Sounds fine to me. Email me at [email protected] and let me know what you have, what you want, when you want it, and we can go from there. Have a great weekend!

You know usually I don't get offended and in this case I am still not. However in the above post by "avdude" there are a few refrences that I resent as an independant. First off "CEDIA" like this reference somehow certifies that you know what you are doing or them for that matter. This one I have heard alot "trunkslammer" gimme a break because a local company has a store front they think they somehow own the business and you are infringing in their territory. You know what if they were any good I wouldn't be able to slam my trunk now would I. The fact is I have worked for many many high end custom stores and for the most part their business practices and devotion to quality makes me sick!