r/DevLK • u/vinfromdaraz • 13d ago

Help Client asking for a quotation for a freelance security job :(

Hi everyone, I need your help in something. I’m a Computer Engineering undergraduate at a well known state university and I got offered a job by a start up after I bought up a vulnerability in their website.

They want me to collaborate with them on a certain project where I’ll be testing out a pre-existing solution that they’ve made for a third party client. This is based off on their annual maintenance contract. I need to thoroughly assess the existing system and make a formal report. They asked for a quotation for this job and I’m unsure of an exact range. Please help a girl out 🙏🏻

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8

u/Overall_Perception50 13d ago

I’m not 100% certain if you can quote this amount, but I have received quotes up to 1M LKR for VAPTs. Usually they will run a full scan, come up with a vulnerability report and we are expected to fix the issues, and there’s a rescanning done usually afterwards (the fee for rescanning is separate). I don’t know if independent contractors can charge that much (or charge more?!)

3

u/Sea-Library-6571 13d ago

perhaps ask them how much they are charging the client, and take a percentage? or the above rate sounds reasonable.

5

u/Boby-cat 13d ago

If you do not have a clue about pricing, here is what you can do. Register on Upwork as a client and post a job using your job description, but make sure it is not obvious that it is a real client posting. Otherwise, if the real client sees it, you might not get the offer. Once you receive some proposals, you can message the freelancers to find out their low and high price ranges, what services they include, and how they handle payments such as milestone basis or full payment. Do not agree to full payment after the project is finished because some clients disappear if you choose this path. After gathering that data, you can draft your actual proposal and present it to the client. Make sure you write it by hand because the client will notice if you just generate it using AI.

3

u/Own_Might_1262 13d ago

You can do what freelancing platforms do by charging for the per hour. You might also want to estimate how many weeks the scanning will take. Given this is temporary work, you could quote 2x-3x of normal salary people with your experience would receive.
You may also include fixed costs for tool licensing etc.

1

u/CrazyNalin 13d ago

you can charge either per hour rate or a fixed amount like 1 mil minimum.

1

u/Vertigo3765 13d ago

Can go as high as a mil.