My short and fast rule Is charge about 4-6x your hourly salary of doing equivalent work. You pay more taxes, you are not receiving benefits, and most of all you

My short and fast rule Is charge about 4-6x your hourly salary of doing equivalent work. You pay more taxes, you are not receiving benefits, and most of all you are doing difficult work. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. If you make $20/hr slinging code. Consulting that be $80/hr. May seem high, but really it is quite low. The big boys charge $250/hr. I think that rate is fair for small businesses. If you need justification for charging a certain fee. Research numbers on how much it costs to actually hire someone full-time and all the extra costs associated with it. Time, Interviews, Job board placements, training, benefits(big costs long haul). If your being hired to do something you know and pretty much getting going on day one, they should be paying a decent sum of money for you, because you had already done the legwork, you step in and work. You are also temporary to them if the contract ends(a.k.a they fire you), as employee you get unemployment(extra cost to the company), exit interviews, more time and money wasted. If you an IC the contract ends, what are you going to do. Look for the next gig, more time spent with no money coming in. My favorite pricing quote is the one about the artist, name escapes me. A lady asks him to paint her caricature of face and he get out a piece of paper, paints a few lines and she says it's amazing and ask how much, he says 5k or something. She says thats ridiculous it took you five minutes. He responds no it took me my whole life. I'm not saying I'm picasso or monet or whatever, but the work you do today will be added to your overall experience and knowledge that you will apply to the jobs of tomorrow, and you should be compensated for that. i also don't change $1000/min (it be nice) - sorry for rambling