Ben,

Could you please refrain from posting actual numbers (except the specific one where you mention $90k/year Java programmer). I don’t think it is proper that we mention actual suggested rates in a post generally read by PHP programmers on “what to charge.” It smacks of collusion/trusts. That’s okay because this is your personal blog and not some professional organization, but that distinction may get blurred in the future.

I’m not sure what that rate is myself.

I agree with the general gist of the article though. One’s rates should be comparable with a comparable Java front-end coder. Probably a bit higher since a Java programmer probably belongs to a company and receives benefits but we’re talking freelance work here. The problem here is for PHP programmers to be able to demand this rate, there needs to be a better system of separating the wheat from the chaff.

For instance, I get e-mails all the time for people looking for hot shot front-end PHP coders and I don’t know who to recommend. My policy is to cast a wide net and then destroy the people in interviews until they break and to see what their real knowledge is. Other’s can’t be so luxurious.

Since there is no “signal” (the closest thing we have is Zend certification), and PHP is not taught in schools like Java is, it appears that supply and demand dictate the rates. From the outsider looking in, supply seems large (anyone who can string a web page together with MySQL can call themselves a “front end PHP coder”) and the demand seems decent (maybe not as large as Java, but that’s because PHP coders get their shit done with much less programming resources.)

Oh well,

terry

Ben,

Thanks! I did a riff off your article and my comments here.

You can’t really compare a PHP programmer with a Java programmer ‘out of the box’.

Sure, the good ones may be comparable, but it takes less proficiency in software engineering to write PHP code, than it takes to write Java.

So, near the lower end, PHP programmers probably earn less than Java programmers.

Java still has this ‘air’ of being harder, more complex and therefore more valuable when it comes to the people who code in it. It’s bollocks. The only real difference between Java and PHP is that it’s a whole lot easier to produce crap software in PHP because of the much less steep initial learning curve. If, however, one wants a solid application in which issues like UML and MVC design come into play the difference between Java and PHP blurs. In fact, there isn’t any difference anymore as far as I’m concerned. It’s just different languages. The whole development process is the same, it’s just the code that happens to use a different syntax really.

The real problem is the fact that the majority of potential customers considers Java ‘better’, ‘harder’, ‘more solid’ and therefore worth more money. The ones that go for PHP are often the ones on a tight budget. Combine this with the perception of PHP being ‘less valuable’ and PHP programmers end up getting paid a lot less than their Java collegues. I know some Java programmers that earn so much money that any PHP programmer I know could only dream of ever earning that rate. It’s sad, but it’s how things are at the moment.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ivo and Marco. There’s two major issues at play: the ubiquity of PHP and the marketing of PHP.

PHP is widely available on $5 a month hosting plans. So there’s a much larger pool of programmers, even if 95% of them are craptastic hobbyists who worked their way into full-time gigs (like myself) as opposed to full-blown engineers.

Java (and .NET too for that matter) has two big things going for it: it was created by a big company with a big marketing budget for use by big business. So it has the respect of being a harder-to-learn, enterprise language—one that can command higher salaries.

Great job Ben. I wrote up some thoughts here:

http://fuzzyblog.com/archives/2006/06/21/whats-a-php-programmer-worth/

Thanks for the great quote Terry; always appreciated.

@ MonkeyT: Yes, you are correct and I’m sorry I wasn’t clear earlier. There is nothing wrong with Ben’s discussion as it was originally posted on his blog and there was no need for his edit (though I do appreciate it). The issue I have with the very blurry line or possible slippery slope between that and posting such stuff as a guild or professional organization with the intent to do or generate price fixing. Something illegal in the United States, which is where Ben and I live.

The reason those laws exist instead of letting the market “sort this out” as you say is because your model assumes efficient markets and perfect information. If a guild forms and the guild grants certification or some criteria for membership then it begins to form a trust, a known market defect. If information is imperfect then we have a classic signaling problem which is the source of approach alluded to by Rob—in effect, he are using a higher rate as a way of “signaling” to customers his separation from the underbidders…a workable, but not very efficient, solution. This is because it presents, by itself, no barrier to the “95% craptastic hobbyists” as Tiffany put it. My guess is Rob depends heavily on referral and references to enforce his separation.

@Ivo: Excellent point about the low end. I have a feeling the same is true relatively speaking on the high end, even though I agree with a lot of Marco’s comments.

Java/J2EE has a very good set of signals. For instance, I know that if the engineer works for, or comes recommended by ThoughtWorks (for instance) that I can expect a certain level of abstract programming ability and Java coding skill. Maybe Marcus could beat 90% of them with PHP and one hand tied behind his back. You have no way of knowing in the PHP world.

By this I mean someone writes PHP on their resume, maybe all they’ve done was download PhpMyAdmin and edited the config.inc.php or hooked up two mysql() calls so that they could build a recipe database. These people are not even lying on their resume, but…

Heck, getting a working J2EE installation up and being able to trace an error when it barfs is itself a great signal! tiffany calls it “big marketing budgets for use by big business,” I use the euphamism “signaling.” We pretty much mean the same thing.

@Marco: Yes, I completely overlooked the demand aspect of “enterprise” Java. My bad. I did mention it in my riff:

http://terrychay.com/blog/article/php-coders.shtml
and I alluded to it by calling demand for PHP “moderate.” but I was too stupid to read Ben’s “Leave a comment” instructions and the link didn’t appear.

Specifically, I made the edit to remove the actual figures mentioned because of my involvement with Atlanta PHP. I did not want it to appear that Atlanta PHP was itself suggesting or promoting an “official” rate for freelancers.

for PHP developer $8000 per year, but in Bulgaria.

I don’t think that a blog post open to the entire world can be considered “collusion” to inflate rates—I get awfully tired of the wannabe lawyers trying to tell me to shut up on this issue, frankly…

Anyway, the range is all over the map, because the needs/skills are all over the map.
Some dinky website with a couple PHP pre-packaged modules slapped in?
A custom CMS?
An Enterprise application?
Surely nobody in their right mind is going to expect to pay the same rate for these needs, yet PHP is suitable for all of them.

I personally ask a few simple questions about the client, and if I’m even interested in doing the work (90% of the time, not) then charge anywhere from $25/hour to $100/hour, depending on the work/client.

You can easily find rates if you dig around a few job postings—but they range from $30K to $90K, full-time in the U.S.

And that’s probably the way it should be, given the huge disparity of the actual task to be done.

Personally, though, as I said, most of the times the job doesn’t suit me long before we get to discussing rates anyway.

[...] Assim como Ben Ramsey (que escreveu sobre o mesmo assunto em seu blog http://benramsey.com/archives/acceptable-rates-for-php-programmers/, o que me levou a trazer este assunto para o phpbrasil.com, pois até então eu acreditava que o problema era somente brasileiro) eu concordo que programadores PHP deveriam ser pagos da mesma maneira que pagam programadores Java. [...]