iOS / tvOS / watchOS / macOS Contract Guidelines
The below are just a few rough guidelines to help meet expectations for the majority of enquiries I receive.
Having worked as a freelancer for over a decade, I know what sort of business relationship works best for both me and my clients. I have a wealth of experience that means I am not just a developer, but somebody who can help you at the design, UX, development, and marketing stages. I like to get involved early in a project so I can help you avoid costly design mistakes, but also so I can get a good feel for the work that needs to be done. I am incredibly passionate about making "best of breed" products (exemplified by the numerous #1 apps I have built on the App Store) and so I like to be involved at every stage to make sure that I can put across best practices. For this reason (amongst others), I do not work on projects that have been started by another developer unless starting from scratch is an option.
I work remotely from my own office but I am always available via phone, Skype, Slack, and email. I can factor in time to come to your offices for face-to-face meetings but I am far more productive in my own office than on a laptop in a client office. With previous clients in the UK, I have typically gone to their office once every 4 weeks as this strikes the right balance for productive catch up sessions and meetings (although in most cases an hour on Skype would have been more efficient). The majority of my clients over the past few years have been overseas (mainly the USA and Dubai) and I typically keep in touch with these teams via Slack.
All of my client work is offered through my company "Dodo Apps Ltd" and is charged at £750 per day (plus VAT if applicable). This is non-negotiable. I can work on either a fixed-cost (with a formal specification) or day rate basis. I am always upfront about judging how long a piece of work will take and I will make suggestions on how to get best value for your money. All my work follows the principals of agile development and I typically work in 1-2 week sprints with frequent test builds so you can see as work progresses.
My payment terms are broken down based on the total value of the project:
- <2 weeks: 50% on start, 50% on completion
- 2-6 weeks: 25% on start, 25% at a defined midpoint (usually first prototype build), 50% on completion
- >6 weeks: Negotiable (typically invoiced at the end of each calendar month for days worked during that month)
All invoices are expected to be paid within 7 days. I never work on an equity or profit-share basis.
For consultancy work, I operate on a £4500+VAT per month fixed price basis which provides as much access to my thinking and experience as needed via Skype and email plus one face-to-face meeting per month within the UK. I take on a maximum of one consultancy client per month and they are billed on 7 day terms on the last day of each month. You may wish to read about my recent experience acting as a consultant between Hawkker and Hedgehog Lab. I have also performed consultancy services for Grow Football, Shoop, and MotoMoney.
I receive multiple enquiries per day which means that I am very picky about which clients I work with. I won't generally take on a project if it's longer than 3 months unless it's something I'm very interested in. I also only work on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS projects and will not be available to port your applications to Android, Windows, etc.
I am able to build a web-based API for your application with PHP if required or I can make use of systems such as Firebase.
You may wish to take a look at the apps I have built for clients or my own self-published apps to get a feel for the high quality work that I do.