Rates

Work can be performed on either a fixed price or hourly rate basis, though in either case, the price will be affected by:

  • On-site/off-site requirements and location when on-site work is necessary
  • Amount of travel
  • Skills required
  • Project duration

Hourly Rates:

Because hourly rates vary depending on the factors mentioned above, we can not give you specifics here, however, as some prospective customers in the past have had unrealistic expectations, here are a few things to consider:

It is not going to cost less per hour than it would cost you for a salaried employee, however, as we are usually hired for our specific areas of expertise, it is likely the job will be performed faster and ultimately cost less.

Outside contractors have the same kinds of business expenses and per employee overhead requirements that you do: accountant, attorney, office space, equipment, insurance, vacation, etc. These have to be factored into a consultant's rates, just as you need to factor all of these expenses into the cost of each of your employees.

Since you are reading this, it is likely you are not looking for an employee, but someone who can provide highly specialized skills on demand, and (depending on the contract terms) whose services you can terminate without notice or incuring the overhead costs of laying off an employee.

These links may help you to better understand the actual cost and value of an employee or outside developer:

What does an employee cost? - You may be surprized at the actual price of an employee. This was written using USA regulations and costs, however, while salaries and other numbers differ, it appears that overall, overhead costs in the Netherlands are comparable.

Rates versus value - Don't fixate too much on salary or hourly rates when hiring, look at what you actually get for your money

Fixed price bids:

While fixed price work is preferred, it does require that the customer have clear goals in mind which can be easily defined. We use a Lean development model which (usually) allows a project to be bid as a series of small modules which the customer can select from based on price and the customer's priority for each individual module in the final product. All fixed price work performed by DeaTech Research Inc. includes a one year warranty during which all design and coding errors will be corrected free of charge.

Discounted Rates:

When time and resources permit, rate discounts may be offered for:

  • Primary research into the molecular biology of aging and areas relevant to aging research (DNA damage, cancer, stem cells, etc.)
  • Open source software
  • Non-profit organizations
  • Academic research projects

and possibly other projects, depending on the nature of the work, the organization's goals and ability to pay, and our current availability to take on the project.

Competing Companies:

We will not do work for competing companies on products which use similar, proprietary technologies unless one of the companies is no longer in business or the work is not product specific (we will however perform work on unrelated products).  If we have any doubts about possible conflicts, we will refuse the job because we would prefer to err in favor of protecting the intellectual property of our previous customers.

Initial Meeting:

The initial meeting/interview is your opportunity to evaluate our ability to meet your needs.  The best way for you to make this evaluation is to provide us with detailed information and any existing design documents, schematics, source code, etc. for your project in advance of the meeting.  This will give us time to review your project in detail, and allow us to have in depth discussions with you regarding the project, make recommendations, and point out potential problems or other issues.  There is no charge for the evaluation or the initial meeting, and we will be happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect the confidentiality of any information you may wish to provide us with.

In some cases, distance and/or time constraints may make an in person meeting impractical, if so, it can be conducted via skype, phone and email.

Post Completion Support:

Once your project has been completed, if we have done our job right, it should require very little ongoing support from us.  In the event you do need assistance, we will be happy to answer questions and help you to resolve any problems that may occur.  For hourly rate projects, follow up support requiring less than two hours per month is free for the first year, anything over two hours will be billed at our current hourly rate.  For fixed price projects, all support is free for the first year after completion of the project, after the first year support is the same as for hourly rate projects.

Follow-up projects:

We generally only take on one new major project at a time, this way we always have some time available to provide customer support or handle follow-up projects for established customers.

Development Tools:

For all projects, we generally provide any necessary software development tools and computer equipment, though you will need to provide any custom hardware or software you have developed, and possibly any specialized third party hardware or software required for the project as well (this is negotiable depending on the type and cost of the particular hardware/software required).

On Site Development:

While we generally perform the majority of development work off site, we will be happy to come to your place of business when needed and for as long as is necessary for requirements gathering, project planning, design meetings, system integration, etc. In some cases, on site development is necessary when working with specialized equipment or working on classified government projects. In these cases, depending on your location and other projects we are involved with, work can sometimes be performed on site.

Historically, we have generally spent from a few days to several weeks on site at the commencement of a project, visit periodically as needed during the project, and then make a final visit lasting from one to six weeks at the end of the project for integration and final checkout of the system or software. In between trips to a customer's site, we provide regular updates by phone, and email, including archival copies of our current development working directories.