How much of a commodity is your work? Are you doing work that most web devs could do? For example vanilla PHP is easier to find than a cutting edge SPA develo

How much of a commodity is your work? Are you doing work that most web devs could do? For example vanilla PHP is easier to find than a cutting edge SPA developer who knows the latest frameworks, architecting important services, etc. How good are your communication skills? In consulting/freelance/contract this is huge. You will never be able to charge as much as someone who has great rapport with the customer, articulates points in a clear way, and shows understanding of the big picture goals. How big are the companies you work with? As a rule of thumb small companies are not usually paying the highest rates. Small companies have more interesting work, but pick your poison. What percentile are you capabilities in? This requires some brutal self honesty but usually it's harder to get top rates if you are not at the top of your field. Do you try to work remote? Jobs usually pay more if you are willing to stay on site most of the time. Hate this but it's true. Do you have an impressive portfolio of work to show? When people see it do they "ok, thanks", or do they say "wow that's really cool"? The good news is you can change and improve everything on this list.