Coders/Designers how's your $$?
 

Okay, so I have decided to jump into this scene and cut my own piece of the pie. I have made about $100 in the past week. I am wondering if you (coders/designers) make a pretty good amount of money for your services? I am not asking how much you make, but out of all the work you do, is it worth it? Are you able to live off your profits? I am wondering these questions because I may change my major in college from computer network administrator to a type of design/webdevelopment major.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks everyone,
Andrew B.

It can be a decent living. I do this between acting gigs, and i enjoy working with vBulletin very much.

However........

The clientele here is pretty rough. In the service requests section, you'll find that a majority of the people just want something for practically nothing and will completely take advantage of you if you give them the chance. if you're going to get in this business, keep a good attorney on retainer. These guys LOVE to get your good hard work, and as soon as you deliver it, they charge back your fee, leaving you with nothing. I have an attorney who specializes in internet fraud, and he doesn't work cheap :(

When you do finally win these chargebacks after you prove that you've done the work, they'll just turn around and post libelous statements about you, and even go as far as to PM others (because they have nothing better to do with their days) trying to get them not to work with you.

I hate to sound so negative, but these are things you must consider before getting into this business.

Um, I really don't think you can do this for a living, just off of service requests or sitepoint, hireacoder etc.
There are MANY people out there that are always watching it, and if the type of project is just isen't for you then you can't do it... It has to be something you could do. Not every request out there can be that

I was taking up service requests from here for quite a while, but I had a number of troublesome jobs all right in a row. As of right now, the majority of my work is for my past clients that I've established a good relationship with over the last couple of years. I get quote requests and such from my website on a daily basis, but only about 5% of them actually go anywhere (Even when people come to you for work, the majority of them will still have the mentality that everything should be free.)

I think you would definitely have a very hard time making a living off of freelance design alone. In a good month, I can make upwards of $1000 to $2000, but then I could easily have a month right after where I don't make anything. It's a very unreliable source of income for sure. I was lucky enough to get hired on by the CPL as a graphic designer back in November, which is giving me a nice bit of salaried income every month to stabilize things a bit. I'm also in college and just working for fun money and not trying to support myself as well. If you're thinking of a design career that offers you a salaried position, then I think you could do quite well, but as far as freelance goes, it has it's ups and downs and is anything but a dependable source of income.

So doing these types of jobs are pretty much just good for extra spending money for the weekend? See I was planning on making a site that somewhat resebles the extremepixels site. I figured if I made some desgins and put them up for sale that maybe I might make some decent money. I keep thinking that I may have found myself a gold mine doing these types of work. Is this not the case?

Thank you for your input guys! I really appericiate it!
Andrew B.

It's definately not a gold mine. There are so many of us designers around doing this that the customer base is spread around so much and the fact that people think they can get everything for nothing.

I'd have to say it's more on your phrase of just getting extra spending money for the weekend, not enough to really get a gold mine :(. At least not for me anyway...

I tried selling premade styles like ExtremePixels and vBSkinWorks do, and I can say firsthand that it's really tough to get a business like that going with them already consuming the majority of the market. You need a definite edge to get into the cookie cutter style market and succeed, and it's going to be a challenge to find one that works.

I make a decent living from web development, and I know quite a few others here do as well. The key is to invest your time while you can afford it into something that will generate money while you sleep... why work hourly when you don't have to.

Something to read when you guys get some time (my cousin and I found it quite inspiring...)

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/ - Especially the "10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job" article.

I know it's not for everyone, but if you can pull it off you will LOVE your job. I sure do.

can be a good living, can be a crap one.

depends on pulling the clients in.

dont be afriad to charge high prices. setthe price on your talent and quality of work. and dont be scared off by compotition.

most ive made in a week is around 1000+ uk pounds. thats working flat out tho. wich i dont tend todo unless i need the cash as it cant burn you out wich is never good. (am a designer only. i dont code)

I've been pulling in over 2K a month filling requests off of Craigslist. Why limit yourself to just vBulletin.

I have been doing designing as pure side work along with running a business and working full-time. I would say that designing does me about $3,000 per month but that is on good months. Do all kinds of work, if you can skin vBulletin that's great but you have so many other scripts out that that need good skins and themes so don't limit yourself. Also get into doing full websites, you can pull anywhere between $800-$2,000 per website depending on the customer. Know what your designs are worth and don't sell yourself short.

But more directly my profits help pay for the extras in life :-).

Alright, with the work I have done skinning vbulletin templates, how much would you say my work would be worth on a full website design? Would you consider my work as professional? I have released two vbulletin 3.6.x themes. Check them out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

That was a great and funny read haha

If you're going to design for vBulletin, it's definitely going to be an uphill battle. For vBulletin administrators, they can either choose from a wide variety of sites that sell pre-made skins for $20-$30 a pop, or they can choose from dozens upon dozens of designers, all willing to get the job done for less and less.

Good clients don't come often. Many times, your projects will be spent working on a skin here or some modifications there, for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars on the side. If you're paying $1000 a month for rent, $400 for your car, and $600 on food, that leaves you on a very tight budget. Among all the clients you get, try to identify ones that would pay off to be in long-term relationships with.

On the same note, try not to limit yourself to just vBulletin or just design. Selling a design to somebody for $800 or $1000 is nowhere near as sustaining as providing complete server and forum maintenance packages for a handful of sites. ;)

I guess this really isn't related to designing or vBulletin, but personally, I'd recommend that you diversify. Try to get some passive income thru other means, to compensate for those slow times between clients. If you've got a good website idea that will earn you revenue on the side, definitely pursue it.

And finally, don't forget to invest your earnings. My income goes into a pooled-stock portfolio some friends and I have set up. Sure, there's natural risks from investing your money in stocks, but we play the markets pretty well. ;)

lol...Podcast #018 - Faster Goal Achievement

Sounds like you have had quite a bit of these problems. Gee, I wonder why? Have you ever not delivered on a schedule? Have you ever been paid for something you did not accomplish as agreed?

:mad:

Make sure this is what you want to do. This is not an overnight success business. It will take years to get where you want to be.

• Build your character. Your tone should always be positive regardless of what's going on. Your messages and actions help create a picture. How does your picture look like?
• Make sure you are affiliated with the right people ... affiliation with another may hurt your chances elsewhere. It's your job to find out what's best for you.
• Do not accept every offer that comes your way ... you will just be hurting yourself and your customers.
• Never underestimate.

Build A Positive Picture

vb.org is a big melting pot .. we have all sorts of members coming and going.
A good majority of these members are business professionals - always on the lookout for quality personnel.

A handful of coders here have been offered jobs ($50,000+) just because of what they do here and how they do it. So, everything you do everything you say is important. Build a positive picture and you will see things changing for the better.

A good majority of members have lost income because of how they portray themselves on vb.org. If you create a negative picture how do you expect to grow within the vBulletin community? eg. Instead of $550 per month selling services/products, you could be earning $2,950 per month.


Everything you do .. does make a difference.

Even though it say's i am a designer under my name, i really am not. I just love to help people get their site's to fit the theme they are going for.
So i don't charge, i will make stuff for people as i can, and then let them decide if they like what i have built for them or not......

I am sure that being a coder though, can bring in lot's of money though. That to me, is something that take's talent, and at my age, i think alot of my coding talent's are history.....i wish computer's would have been this easy when i was younger........Heck i remember the first computer we got at school, it was a radioshack TSR80.........hehehehe

Data Processing classes for me when I was in school was learning to operate an 80 line keypunch machine ;)

Best advice I've seen yet on this subject...well done Princeton :)

@the OP - there is very good money to be made in the design business...if you follow Princeton's advice and have patience and perserverence...best of luck to you! :)

Thanks for all the great feedback! I appreciate it!