$100 USD

[rowdog]

I'm mostly retired for the last 4 years but I'm still a telecommuting independent contractor and I charge $100 an hour with a four hour minimum. I've also been known to work for free on interesting and worthy (non-profit) projects.

I usually get paid for coding JavaScript/HTML/CSS and whatever Perl happens to be gluing it all together. Typically, I'll administer and secure the server(s) and be on call for emergencies. A lot of times I work with smaller shops where I "get " to play at DBA and whatever else they don't know how to do.

Now, I'm not a greedy man and I would be happy at $50 or even $25 an hour but I found two things happened when I went to $100/hr: more people hired me and I only got serious customers. Life has been much more pleasant since then.

[Your Mother]

I second this approach/experience. It's counter-intuitive but higher prices will probably mean better, and maybe even more satisfied, customers. I managed a store which had the lowest prices, by a lot, for service X in the city (I didn't set most prices). Instead of customers grateful for the bargain, we got, by far, the worst, most nitpicky, and craziest customers imaginable. I believe there have been some psych/consumer studies backing up the idea too: that the simple act of paying more can make customers feel more satisfied with otherwise identical products or pieces of work.