>"OMG $200 an hour — that's like $400k a year full-time! That's insane!" But it's not full time and that's precisely why it costs roughly 3x contract rates. A

>"OMG $200 an hour — that's like $400k a year full-time! That's insane!" But it's not full time and that's precisely why it costs roughly 3x contract rates. A portion of your year is "down time" searching for projects and no one is paying for that. So you put that into your project costs. If the companies you're pitching don't realize this you're probably pitching to the wrong companies because it's pretty well known. EDIT: Also, if they want a compare then have them compare you coming in doing this project to the cost of hiring and training a permi and then letting them go. Most likely the turn-around for a permanent employee is going to be 6mo at an absolute minimum (unless it's Zynga or some serious scumbags) where as your project could be hours or weeks.