Rather than increase your rate, maybe you can try and increase your bandwidth. Your rate will be able to go up as your portfolio grows and the size and quality

Rather than increase your rate, maybe you can try and increase your bandwidth. Your rate will be able to go up as your portfolio grows and the size and quality of clients increases. So keep taking on more and more projects, and bring in someone straight out of college to work for $15 an hour to take on the smaller ones with you. That's how I started at my current job, and my boss has taken our company from $1000 sites to $20,000 sites. The more work you do, the more experience you can leverage to raise your rates.