My favorite single post for practical value in the history of HN is tptacek's answer to "How to start a consultancy:"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960#up_4247615

It's not your client's job to care about your vacation - it's yours. The reality of freelancing is that you are responsible for your vacation, taxes and healthcare. That's one of the reasons people hire you - They don't want to have to think about it! Raise your rates accordingly.

Also, don't be a 'freelancer.' A 'freelancer' is a mindless drone who is told to do something and does it. Be a consultant. A consultant is an expert who provides value to the business, either in terms of time / money saved, or increased revenue. How you market yourself is important.

Here's a gem from tptacek: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960

Also, go to hnsearch.com and do a search for 'patio11'. Read everything he has written - it covers marketing yourself and charging appropriately. Do it now. That proposal you're working on can wait :)

Good luck, and welcome to the crew!

Edit: Freelancers vs Contractors vs Consultants: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420396

Here is a simple algorithm, espoused by many of the experts here on HN:

- With each engagement, increase your rates by 20-100%.

- Continue doing this until clients stop hiring you.

Note that if you deliver consistent measurable value, people will never stop hiring you.

Basically, you are over-thinking it. You don't need to do complicated math to determine your skill level relative the average employee, the salary of an average employee, or the TCO of an employee to a company. The only thing that matters is:

    1) Can you deliver value?
    2) Can you DEMONSTRATE to a client that you can deliver value?
    3) Can you demonstrate sufficient value to make a $X000 engagement a good idea?
    4) Realize that X can be whatever number you can think of.

For more detail, here is one of the definitive posts on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960

Here are a few more - How to Deploy Software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11204736

- Ask HN: What's left for early startup engineers as the company grows? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8881811

- How I wrote a self-hosting C compiler in 40 days - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731002

- Who Y Combinator Companies Want - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10698009

- Why I quit my dream job at Ubisoft - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10953381

- Ask HN: How do I start being a consultant? (Thomas's comment there is gold!) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960

- Request For Research: Basic Income - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340&utm_term=comme...

Yudkowsky Ambition Scale

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4509934

How Do I Start Being a Consultant?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245960

Bane's rule, you don't understand a distributed computing problem until you can get it to fit on a single machine first.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902739

Edit: Thanks detaro for telling me how to link to individual comments.