Presumably you want to get a certain amount of money out of this. The lower bound should be enough to provide this. Bearing in mind that an hourly rate never t

Presumably you want to get a certain amount of money out of this. The lower bound should be enough to provide this. Bearing in mind that an hourly rate never translates into the salary you think it should. Probably half your hours are going to be billable hours. The other way to look at it is that no one is being forced to use your services. You may think $1000/hr is crazy but if it's worth it for a business to pay for it, they will. If not, they won't. Ultimately your rate is going to be somewhere between the minimum you need, and the maximum they will pay. I don't really have good answers beyond that. You could argue starting high, and lowering your charges is better because it's always easier to lower prices. On the other hand if you want to attract customers, lower prices are better. Ultimately it comes down to the specifics of your local market and niche. I've been in this situation before, setting my hourly rate too low. And I eventually ended walking away because it wasn't worth it for me.