Hey folks, I’ve been working for about a month with a client who hired me to migrate their entire business to Make 4.0 and automate as much as possible. I’d appreciate some perspective on whether my rate makes sense.
So far, I’ve built: • A chatbot that uses AI to answer questions, escalate to admins, run complex internal workflows, log full chat history, send videos, search the shop database to recommend products, and generate quotations. • A fully automated accounting workflow: every invoice that arrives via email is processed into Spreadsheets automatically. I also made a custom iOS shortcut for their assistants to scan paper invoices and feed them into the system.
They now want me to keep developing adding AI voice-driven assistants, internal alert systems, and consolidating everything into 2–3 main platforms.
I’m currently working around 4–5 hours a day (≈25 hours a week) at $14/hour. They told I can’t ask for a “U.S. salary” since I’m based in South America.
I don’t have a big portfolio yet (just 1 client before this one and personal projects), but it’s clear I can handle complex Make and AI integrations like the ones I’ve mentioned. Still, I’m starting to wonder if I’m undercharging for the scope and technical depth of what I’m doing.
Question:
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For this level of automation + AI development, does $14/hour sound fair to you?
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What do others in this field usually charge for similar projects?
Thanks in advance just want to make sure I’m valuing my work realistically.
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There is no such thing as “U.S. salary” for online services and where you are based does not matter for the rates you charge.
And for this level of automation $14/hour is very far from fair in my opinion. Especially for the AI chat bot. Unless its taking you a ton of hours to complete the project and at the end the bill is still substantial.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! You’re making a valid point: I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the chatbot, mainly because every time I finished a feature, new ideas came up to keep improving it.
I don’t have the exact number of hours, but overall it’s been about a month of work. That said, I wouldn’t say the time reflects slow progress, I tend to implement updates and improvements pretty quickly. For example, just yesterday I built a full quotation system from scratch that generates and sends a PDF (using a Google Docs template) based on the user’s chat and interested products and that took me around 4 hours.
Hi @Internet The best way to make sure you are charging a justified price is based on your expertise and experience. Go through fiverr and upwork for common rate for such services.
Best,
@Prem_Patel
We hire contractors to help with our Make buildouts.
For the level of complexity that you are mentioning, I think you are undercharging. They can’t tell you what rate you can charge - but they can find someone else to do the work. If you are doing quality work at a fair speed, then - if you are willing to let them go as a client if they say no - you can tell them that you are bumping your rate to $20/hr. They can take it or leave it, but you are starting to climb the ladder of where you should be based on complexity.