I've got some imposter syndrome/esteem issues I find it hard to pitch > $50/hour for my services... (I'm in utah)..
Average pay around here is also like $70-80k which I think is something like $35-40/hour, so again $150/hr just seems really high... I'd love to get $100/hour freelancing..
You need to account for time not working, such as paid holidays, vacation and sick time. Also, you need to factor the amount the company pays in addition to the salary such as payroll tax, benefits, cost of the space, tools and amenities to let the employee do their job. These are all costs that will be absorbed by the freelancer.
All said and done, a company pays probably $60/hr, minimum, to hire an employee at $80k per year.
Doubling or tripling your salaried employment rate is not uncommon when freelancing in order to maintain the SAME level of income to account for non-billed time. This can be adjusted for longer term contracts.
My point is $150/hr is not too hard to justify as a consulting rate for an equivalent employee making in the salary range you specify.
The other consideration is the role you're in with the company who hires you. Are they hiring you to interface with an existing tech team, or is it a solo gig, where you also will be playing business analyst and project manager. The latter, IMO, would also justify a higher rate, assuming one is competent at it and is providing that additional value.
My large client had a fairly large and complex application written for him by a small company about 12 years ago. It was written in Visual Basic.NET and designed horribly. Since meeting him 8 years ago I've made major improvements to the system both in functionality and in maintainability including re-writing areas that I am naturally working on in C#, moving the business logic out of VB.NET screens, etc.
$150 per hour where I am (Top 5 metro area in US) is good but not great. I could definitely charge more if I wanted to squeeze my side clients for every dime and could even change my billing to something more akin to a percentage of NPV of projects but it's just side work for now.
Having W2 and 1099 income like this is advantageous as well. First, I max out my social security tax at my main employer which means my side income is social security tax free. Second, I max out my 401k employee contribution of $18,500 at my main employer. I then have an Individual 401k with Vanguard where I take about 20% of my profits and deposit that as the employer portion which lowers my federal taxes substantially. I take a good portion of what's left and deposit that in a 529 account for my kids which my state gives a tax deduction for that on state taxes.
My smaller client was just a friend that I met through my kids' school. My larger client I met while studying for a programming certification at a baseball clinic my oldest son attended. A guy who owned a local business saw me with a thick book and approached me with, "Are you in IT?"