Help, how much to charge? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: lean04
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 06, 2016, 02:41:09 am
content: Hi everyone,I need help for the following. A certain company of medical devices asked me to reverse engineer one that provides negative pressure therapy (i have actually already done it for myself, Dave's style, i tore it apart. It has a dc motor to provide negative pressure, a pressure sensor, an mcu, couple of opamps, schmitt trigger and passives. It is a huge business with lots of money involved and this reverse engineering would make them earn more.Can someone suggest an aproximate number to charge them for reverse engineer their product (i am not an engineer)?Thanks in advanceLeandro from Argentina

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 12:29:46 am
content: If you already did all the hard work, and there is a market for the thing... Make a batch and sell them yourself.Charge them whatever you think they are willing to pay + 20% more. If they accept your first offer you didn't charge enough.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 08:55:10 am
content: Ah I see the problem, you don't know how many hours you would have worked on it, as it was a personal project.My usual way of charging is to work out how many hours it was, then look at what parts were easy, and what was really tricky. The easy stuff gets a slight discount, the hard stuff gets a multiplier for the number of hours it took (eg 2x).Another way is simply to decide what you wish to buy, and write that up as the bill. Eg income for the next 3 months and a new car.Thing is we don't know how long you spend on this, nor what income in your country is for this sort of work.

author: lean04
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 07, 2016, 05:17:26 pm
content: thanks for the replies, i don't quite remember how much time i spent, maybe a month or so but i only used my spare time. The device is imported and distributed by a company (not the company that makes them), and it is single use, 7 days limit and then to the trash. I reversed engineered it as a challenge for my self, just for fun. Now by chance this company told me they are trying to hack the device, so they can keep using it past it's limit. Each 7 days treatment costs here about U$S 500. I calculate (roughly) that they can earn 40% more with each reuse. I don't know the amount of devices they sell per year. I was thinking to ask them for an oscilloscope to make the reverse engineering (they don't know i've already done it) and charging about U$S 5000 (cost of 10 devices), but i am afraid it could be very little having in mind that they will earn lots of money with this. A normal average wage here is about U$S 2500 - U$S3000.About making them myself, i don't know about patents infringement (not open source precisely), i think it's better to charge for the reverse engineering and leave them the legality of using it...

author: Sbampato12
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2016, 06:38:36 pm
content: Quote from: Smokey on April 07, 2016, 12:29:46 amThat is a true. I'm thinking again my prices, because last 10 works, clients accepted without time to think. I realised that I must be asking too little....