Re: What do guys like me get paid?

Stephen,
If I could get you as a freelancer for $X, I would hire you full time at $.5 times X (...if I could afford it).

To be employed full-time you have to be worth the amount you charge, plus the added amount of overhead for the full-time position - including any insurance, the office space and air conditioning you use, and the time that I'm paying you to fill out your timesheet or take a bathroom break. (When you are freelance those times are a "hidden cost" to your client.)

Currently, they don't have to pay for your down time - and as the saying goes... "Why buy the cow..." etc., etc.

As Ron said, you can only demand more if you can prove that you are "earning your keep". Typically, that's at least double what it cost to employ you as a freelancer.

If you don't have a well balanced portfolio of current clients, it might be to your advantage to take the full-time job offer. I would say that even in East Tennessee, you are working for below market rate right now. The rate you posted is well below what my freelance rate was over a decade ago in West Tennessee. Not to say I didn't work cheap when I started out... that was a point in my life when I just needed my foot in the door to learn about the industry, so I did work as kind of an "internship" for a company for a while - but I couldn't continue and survive at even the cheap rate I charged for very long. Even though I loved the type of work and the people I worked with at that company, I certainly couldn't raise a family on that salary.

Often, the best way to get a *decent* raise is to work for someone else.

If you don't want to work somewhere else, and feel that you are getting fair compensation for your current work, try to get as close to that hourly rate as possible, but I see no benefit for them to pay you more than that for the full time job - unless they sense that you are about to be snatched up for a better gig and they are desperate to keep you.