I make $45/hr on W2 doing remote work. Rails dev is one of my tertiary responsibilities. I also do Java dev and sysadmin. When I contract, I try to base my rat

I make $45/hr on W2 doing remote work. Rails dev is one of my tertiary responsibilities. I also do Java dev and sysadmin. When I contract, I try to base my rates around $125/hr, but I'll give a dose of reality to the fantasy that HN always promotes: it's not easy to get people to pay that. I've been more successful getting clients in the $75-80/hr range and found that to be about the top of the tolerable range for most people, and even that is often a stretch. It really comes down to what type of client you're pitching. Anything mid-medium-sized or less in terms of revenue is going to snicker at decent rates. I've had a couple of bigger clients that were surprised they weren't paying me more than $125/hr, but I stopped freelancing full-time shortly after getting them (one of them successfully courted me over to W2; I probably shouldn't have taken it). I always found it hard to break into the bigger clients that were willing to pay good rates; they usually already have vendors and everyone wants their associate to get a piece of the pie.