[danmelnick]

Here's the thing about those recruiters.

Let's say they get a budget of $80/hour for the project. Their goal is to sell it to you for as little as possible so they can take the difference. So they're always lying to you about the customer's budget, because in truth it's about them maximizing their profit.

I once had a recruiter offer me $25/hour. I laughed at them and told them to not call me back unless they could do $60, which at the time was my rate. They called back about 15 minutes later and said the client had increased the budget and they could do $60.