There are a lot of ways to do it as proved by the comments here. My personal move from freelancer to "company" was a slow transition that involved moving away f

There are a lot of ways to do it as proved by the comments here. My personal move from freelancer to "company" was a slow transition that involved moving away from clients that nickel-n-dime and moving towards those who do not. For me, life did not really get easier until I had a roster of clients that wanted repeat work - either as a formal retainer, or just a somewhat regular billing amount each month. Rate hike was one technique which rid me of a client that was too much hassle, but as you know it takes a lot of guts to let go of a paying customer. You claim that raising your rates led to losing work. You do lose clients when you raise rates, that is the point. You don't want to employ this strategy if you have zero clients who are willing to stick around at the higher rate. Another is actively seeking out your own clients to cut out the middle-man. I found my sweet spot with small (10-50) companies who did not have full-time programmers on staff and were located in my area. It took me about five years of actively seeking clients and word-of-mouth to get a decent business going.