"Pricing yourself beyond the reach of irrational clients is a good first line-of-defense against taking jobs you’ll regret." - great advice. It's important to

"Pricing yourself beyond the reach of irrational clients is a good first line-of-defense against taking jobs you’ll regret." - great advice. It's important to quickly filter irrational clients. It's good to set a minimum contract size and tell people that up front. Also, discuss projects in terms of days, weeks or months of work, and not in hours. This way you can respond to inquiries for rates: "We charge $1500 per day, with a $7500 minimum contract size." Then you can charge per project after a discussion on how many days or weeks it will take.