Because coding is only a small part of your job as a consultant. Your job is to alleviate your client's pain points, pain points they are incapable or unwilling

Because coding is only a small part of your job as a consultant. Your job is to alleviate your client's pain points, pain points they are incapable or unwilling to alleviate themselves. There will be coding. There will also be design, education, testing, documentation, a certain amount of hand holding possibly, presentation, and possibly travel. By just billing coding you are vastly undercharging. Consider this... Let's say you make $100k as salary, with decent benefits, etc. I calculated it once and I would need $60k to replace my benefits (I make more than $100k). To make consulting worthwhile financially you would then need $100k+60k+??k. For salaries under $120k doubling to get your target income as a consultant seems to be a good rule of thumb. For salaries over $120k, maybe somewhere between 150-200%. As other have said, never charge by the hour. Charge costs + weekly retainer, or monthly retainer. When I was a freelance consultant I did costs + hourly, and it was a mistake, but I was young.