Freelance Web Developer: A Career Guide to Better Jobs and Higher Rates

Overview and definitions

Freelance web developer rates are highly influenced by geographical location. Salaried web devs in tech hub cities can earn 25-35 percent or more above the national average.

Freelance web developers working outside of these tech hubs have a a strong pricing arbitrage opportunity if they can find clients willing to hire remote freelance professionals. For example, the average salaries for web developers in cities like Orlando and Denver can be 3-17 percent less than the national average and as much as 50 percent less than salaries in San Francisco.

For example, here is a sample of web developer salary data by location from Indeed.com:

Freelance web developers have opportunities in almost every industry or sector. That includes technology companies, naturally, but it also includes:

• financial services
• manufacturing
• healthcare
• education
• government
• media
• consulting and professional services
• real estate
• research organizations
• sports and entertainment
• NGOs

Web developers typically must coordinate with designers and product managers, collaborate with a team of other developers and write, test and document new software applications. Interpersonal and consultative skills are critical. Web developers need to be able to gather  expectations and requirements for a web application from non-technical clients and peers in order for the project to succeed.

The key to longevity as a freelance web developer is the ability and willingness to switch to new skills. According to PayScale’s analysis, the following skills give a 10% boost or more to income for web devs:

• Angular.js
• ASP.NET Framework
• Microsoft SQL Server

Assume, however, that those skills will eventually be replaced and moved down to this list of skills that are table stakes and do not positively impact your income as a freelance web developer:

• jQuery
• HTML5
• CSS
• PHP

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the projected growth rate for this role is 15 percent, about double of all occupations. The median pay for all web devs was $68,000 in 2017, and the top 10 percent of all web devs earned more than $122,000.

The BLS estimates that about 16 percent of web developers are self employed. That’s higher than our estimate that 11 percent of all U.S. workers are full-time freelance.

Freelance web developers generally specialize in either back end or front end development. Back end developers create the technical framework of a website. Front end developers create the functionality that users interact with such as e-commerce applications or media players. Both require some familiarity with good design and the ability to collaborate with web designers.

To advance your career in web development, you should consider the details below leading to engineering and project management roles.

(Nation1099 is an affiliate of some of the companies mentioned below and may receive a commission if you purchase from them.)

Setting minimum freelance web developer rates

Your minimum rate as a freelance web developer should be at least $98 on an hourly basis if you live in the U.S. and have 7-10 years of experience. Your minimum daily rate should be $784.

How we calculated this freelance rate

We took salary data for full-time web developers in the U.S. from several sources such as Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, PayScale, LinkedIn and Indeed and applied our “all-in expense formula.”

This formula shows the complete costs to you of having a freelance web developer business rather than a job in this field. The formula ensures that your rates include the costs of retirement benefits, health insurance, marketing expenses and other overhead, along with the value of unpaid work in your business.

This article explains in detail our formula for setting freelance rates.

You can use our freelance rate calculator to adjust the variables if you have more or less experience in web development.

Variables and exceptions

• We assumed a freelance web developer career of at least 7-10 years experience. Entry-level computer coders may have lower fees.
• This formula doesn’t account for travel, meals, conferences, memberships or learning. These may add up to 25 percent to your expenses and therefore to your rate.

An interesting in-depth analysis of actual rates for freelance developers is from Codementor, based on their survey. They are looking at all developers and not web devs in particular, and the rate they show is for all respondents regardless of experience level. (Though their average respondent has a lot of experience.) They show average rates in the U.S. of $70/hour.

Which is about in line with what we’ve found elsewhere. Most freelancers are giving back around 20 percent of the value of their work to clients unnecessarily. The difference between $70/hour and $98/hour is money the client is saving by hiring you instead of putting an employee on the payroll.

How can I earn more money as a freelance web developer?

The roles senior to a web developer that make more money include senior software engineer, software architect and IT project manager.

The average salary for an IT project manager is $110,000. The minimum freelance hourly rate equivalent with our formula is $114.

The average salary for a senior software engineer is $121,000. The minimum freelance hourly rate equivalent with our formula is $125.

In addition to fundamental software and communication skills, these more senior roles in web development require skills or experience in:

• client relations
• customer service
• team leadership
• supervising junior engineers and developers
• product life cycle management
• Agile and SCRUM
• server resource management
• equipment installation
• performance measurement

In short, to advance your career in this field, you need to be able to provide consultative services, coordination and more complete solutions that draw on leadership, communication and business fundamentals skills.

5 strategic questions to help you increase your freelance web developer rates

1. Goals: Where do you want to be in the next three years?
2. Capacity: What skills do you need to acquire to grow you freelance web development business?
3. Market: Do you know enough about what your customers want and need in order to price your services favorably?
4. Pricing: Is there an opportunity for you to access higher paying markets outside of the region where you live?
5. Priorities: What do you need to stop doing in order to make progress toward your career goals as a freelance web dev?

Related reading: 4 Steps To a Clearer Freelance Brand

Where can I find freelance web development jobs?

1. Sell people on the virtues of independent contractors

As we discussed above, there are many open web development jobs and the growth prospects in this career are very strong.

You should concentrate on reassuring employers that remote and freelance arrangements will be effective for them. Your task is to turn employers looking for an employee into prospective clients who see your freelance services as a solution to their hiring problem.

Take time to note all the possible “sales objections” that you can anticipate a prospective client having. Essentially, your prospective clients want to know “How is this going to work? How will we work together?”

Then prepare a landing page for your site that answers all those objections in advance. Therefore a simple “How I work” page under a “Start Here” link in your navigation can be effective.

Keep polishing that explanation of what you do and how you do it until you have a tight value proposition that you can use in your profiles on other job sites such as LinkedIn and in your sales calls.

2. Use job boards . . . with caution

There are a few websites that specialize in freelance web developer jobs. We track these on our list of best freelance websites. However, most — thought not all — of these also emphasize commodity rate gigs. Some of these sites are developing new business models and may offer terms that you find more attractive. One, for example, advertises a minimum $60/rate. That’s far below our recommended minimum of $98/hour. But the difference may lie in the experience level. It’s possible you can can higher paying gigs on these sites.

Sites that are more specialized for freelance web devs include:

• Toptal
• Designs.net
• Gun.io
• Codeable

If you are an experienced freelance web developer looking for jobs more suited to your advanced skills, you may have more success browsing our list of best consulting websites and searching for project management, product management, SCRUM, solutions architect or IT specialist.

Marketing resources for freelance web developers

We haven’t spotted a great marketing resource for advanced or experienced professionals in this field yet. (Let us know what we’re missing.)

This is distinct from advice on how to market your own freelance web dev services. There’s lots of that, and we like to think Nation1099 has a lot to offer. (Start with the Grow section in our top navigation bar.)

But resources that help you market your services . . . this remains an underdeveloped part of the freelance ecosystem.

How to market your freelance web dev services

Customer education helps you stand out. The biggest competition every freelancer has isn’t another option . . . it’s inertia. You can chalk up most lost prospects to “no decision” rather than “went with competitor.”

This usually results from the prospective client not really understanding what they are buying or how it will help. Be the freelancer who can explain what what dev is and how you will work together, and you will stand out from the competition.

Content marketing, particularly assets like how-to guides, are great ways to educate your customers and to turn inertia into momentum.

5 Ways to Get Freelance Clients Using Content Marketing

Career and business courses for freelance web developers

Of course you can find many skills-based courses online to help you acquire additional skills mentioned above. Some of the deepest catalogs are on Skillshare, Udemy, Pluralsight and Lynda.

• Skillshare’s general web development courses 
• Udemy’s general web development courses
• Pluralsight’s advanced web development courses
• Lynda

Most of these courses are aimed at beginners. One catalog that goes deeper if you are trying to broaden your skills is LearnToProgram.tv. We’ve talked to the founder multiple times and toured the studio, and they are really serious about producing high quality and effective instruction.

For the leadership, communication, project management and business fundamentals skills discussed above that will help you sell more consultative services, EdX and Coursera are a great place to start:

• Advanced Computer Science courses at EdX
• Project management micromasters at EdX
• Information technology courses at Coursera
• Agile development specialization at Coursera

Coursera also has foundational degree programs in computer science:

Business advice and resources for freelance web developers

We haven’t found many great business resources uniquely for experienced professionals in this area. Earlier career professionals share a lot of valuable career advice in forums like Stack Overflow and Github.

One great source of in-depth content for this community is the freeCodeCamp blog.

Some career podcasts for this group are starting to emerge, including:

• Developer Tea – Short career advice episodes.
• The Changelog – One of the originals; open-source focused.
• Software Engineering Daily – Great for keeping up on tech trends.
• Front End Happy Hour – Interesting guests from interesting companies.
• The Freelancers’ Show – From the folks at Devchat, profiles of freelance web devs.

Future trends for freelance web developers

Chatbots. They are going to be tablestakes for websites that want to engage visitors, and they will need help implementing and customizing solutions.