My boyfriends boss learned that I have experience running discord servers and said he would pay me to set one up for them. With a ticketing service and all that customers can use, announcements, private staff channels, onboarding, chat moderation etc. I set it up in a couple hours. My boyfriend said I need to know how much to charge when I show them, but I honestly have no idea. I’m thinking $50-100?
Are you planning to just hand it over or provide an ongoing management service? [Subscription]
You ALWAYS first agree on the price (either hourly/milestones/project based) and THEN do the work. This way, you left room for a lot of potential problems.
Are you also supposed to maintain the discord? That changes things dramatically.
Either low flat fee and subscription/support model or high one time payment. Dont work for free for people who (most likely) dont need someone to work for free
$75/hr plus expenses
650$
What’s your time worth to you? When I started in business I thought, man if I can make $25 an hour I’m going to be alright. Eventually that number turned into, if I’m not making $150 an hour I’m not doing it.
Do a good job on the documentation and end-user training documents, charge a minimum of $300-500, devote approximately 4-8 hours to each documentation packet, it’s up to you if you want to pay yourself minimum wage for this
1k for creation, then a monthly retainer for maintenance ;)
It’s not much different than the investment of a small 3-5 page website. I think $1000 minimum to start. It’s a extremely niche skillset. Setting up the bots, role architecture, etc can be time consuming. Then developing and typing all the processes and procedure, throwing in training.
I think most people would underestimate this project.
You could also charge by the hour.
I’d think $150 would be reasonable for a tech support guy? Then even if it snowballs, you are getting paid for every single moment you put in.
Also, note, you have no obligation to do this. So make an offer that feels too good to be true for you, and if he bites, great! If not, then just move on with your life.
200$-800$.
It will probably be a lot of work so that it won’t be a very profitable project unless you make it a full time business. But that’s ok.
This is understandeable for first-times, you shouldn’t be looking to hit good hourly rates, you should either be looking to get experience so that you can deliver a better product faster next time, or treating it as a one off project while you network and experiment.
Discord-making is unlikely to command enough respect to get into the three-zeroes club anyways, additionally anyone interested in discord is probably very young, has a low budget, and not very interested on actual business. This specific boss is probably looking at you as some cheap form of labour who would be content with a couple of extra bucks for buying videogames. Discord is after all a hobby platform associated with unproductivity.
Maximize your chances of closing the deal, and use it as an escape of the unlucrative world of running discords, network with actual companies and keep an eye out for adjacent industries. Hopefully you will be able to pivot your skills onto more profitable ventures like running communities of communities with higher revenue like Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, etc…
Source: I manage the IT aspects of some companies’ social media media campaigns, there’s no money on discord.
Do your best to estimate the hours it will take. Put in some contingency. The key to justifying the cost is explaining how much time each piece takes.
Charge based off the value you provide, not the time it takes. Easily in the $1k ballpark