[sqldba]

Fair points, you're thinking on a different scale for me. The agencies I'm thinking of were little more than chop shops who hire and then resell. The only positive they could give you is if someone is sick they can back fill; but having seen it in action that's really just someone unfamiliar with the processes warming a seat for a few days and not doing much.

MSDN $2kpa. Liability $1kpa. I guess it's not "a lot" but if you're only doing a little work (as I was) it was a substantial portion of the profit gone; I spent more on hardware though.

[mgkimsal]

It's all perspective. My hourly rate is in three figures, which, for a lot of people looking at me as an individual freelancer, seems high. But the local mid-sized agencies all charge in that range for someone with my skillset anyway. But... that's not how I justify my rate, which is what my original reply was about. And... there are some things I simply can't offer - I can't parallelize my efforts like a larger agency can, which may definitely be worth it for people trying to hit specific market deadlines.

I don't even do MSDN costs. :) But there are definitely some overheads - insurance, I have office space (coworking), services (bookkeeping, etc), transportation - conferences, etc. I may have, say, $12k in overhead each year - including health insurance. That cost is pretty much the same whether I bring in $15k or $150k, and certainly if you're bringing in $15k, those expenses are far higher % of income.