Quit My Job For Consulting: Two Months Later
Another item to consider is what a fair rate is.<p>Let's suppose that a full-time developer is paid $120K/year.  (There are developers who get more, a lot who get less, but this gives us a nice round number to work with.)<p>When you add up benefits, taxes, office space, etc, the average employee costs 2x their salary.  So that developer probably costs $240K/year.<p>You tend to work about 50 weeks per year, so that's about $4,800/week.<p>You work 5 days/week so that's $960/week.<p>After you get rid of lunch, discussing the weather, HN, etc, you're probably only putting in 6 hours of actual work per day, so that's $160/hour.<p>Therefore an employee who makes $120k/year is likely costing the employer $160/hour.  As a contractor you have to bear those costs that employees do not.  Plus you have to bear costs such as not getting paid for the time it takes to find more work.<p>Most people who contract do not charge enough.  Perhaps after running through these sample numbers, you'll do the calculation for yourself and ask for a more realistic rate for what it costs for <i>you</i> to be a contractor.