If you built up that domain knowledge while being paid top dollar per hour by the same company, then I understand their reluctance to go along with your offer.

If you built up that domain knowledge while being paid top dollar per hour by the same company, then I understand their reluctance to go along with your offer. It feels a little bit extortionate to be honest. I wouldn't go along with it either, not because it's a bad deal in isolation, but because it sets a bad precedent. It basically tells every employee/contractor that if they know a way to add a lot of measurable value, they can use that as a bargaining chip to 3x their pay. This also discourages trying to add any value that isn't as easily expressed in dollars (which is the case for many important things, such as product quality improvements). I think part of the expectation when contracting somewhere long-term (or just being an employee, for that matter) is that the amount of value you add per hour worked increases sharply over time, and slower than your fee. In other words, initially you're overpaid wrt your value-add, and then that corrects itself over time as you figure out what the company is all about.