Whatever they're willing to pay and you're willing to accept. Likely less than they're billing your time for. Just remember that the company has costs on that

Whatever they're willing to pay and you're willing to accept. Likely less than they're billing your time for. Just remember that the company has costs on that time. Both through direct tax on the income but employers also tend to pay out for things like your space, hardware, liability insurance, and other intangible benefits you get while employed. The expectation of work from an agency is also significantly different than a freelancer. When you're talking to a lone wolf, you expect a level of flakiness, perhaps you'll need to be more hands on to manage them through your requirements. With a digital agency, I would expect that money to cover the local management of you. And if you screw up, I expect the work to be put right for no additional fee. I also expect their liability insurance to be a lot sturdier than a freelancers. All this stuff is essentially what would be covered by introductory sales contracts. I don't think I've done work with an agency that hasn't tried to —on day one or two— laid out a vast document of everything that isn't going to be their responsibility. These cause endless fun in negotiations. And as part of this, I also understand that part of the $165 is going into the pocket of the jobsworth sales team who just happened to take my call. I've worked with and for agencies. The bad ones are horrible places places for developers. Very rarely will an agency developer have enough freedom to do something good enough that it makes a sale. Not in the way that Art and Sales teams can. It's an unfortunate truth that managers are more than willing —IME— to exploit. That is not to say you're not worth more than you're being paid. As I lead, pay is entirely negotiable. Understanding your actual value to the employer is critical to extracting the best salary though.