However, high-end means the focus gets drastically shifted from programming to figuring out what the client wants.
That said, you can charge 250-500 as a freelancer for a few hours of consultation. Your rates should largely depend on:
1) How many hours the client intends on spending with you 2) Urgency of work (and thus how much bandwidth you need to give to it) 3) Client's ROI
If you save your client 1000 hrs of reporting work a year by developing them a custom solution, that is easily worth well over 100,000k for that client: even if they are only paying people $50/hr to create these reports.
You can't charge 100,000k, otherwise the client will not have a great ROI. However, such a solution should take you somewhere around 100-400 hours to complete.
That works out to $125/hr in the worst-case, giving the client a good ROI after the first six months, and should give you a solid 4-6 months of work. If they need it sooner you need to charge them more, because you'll spend less time on business development.
This is a perfect world hypothetical of course ... in reality many other things come into play that will only work to drive your rates down.
For instance, the person who would want a site for $50/hr is probably not going to pay $125/hr. You could try with that person, but that would be pushing your luck. In this case they're not the right client for you.
Sometimes I give it away ... for a client that is giving me a lot of business.
However, you can charge what is 150/hr for WP work if you have a good reputation and do good work. Literally EVERYONE who has any kind of money runs a charity, or is involved in a business or seven that needs a new homepage ...
This won't work if you're trying to cold call and get clients, you're right.
I started out at 50-70/hr programming. Some of my contracts now are only ~90/hr.
How do you get this information? Do you ask them how much time is spent on this task per person and their average hourly rate? Or do you go about finding this info out another way? Do you usually prepare a confidentiality agreement to discuss this? How do you bring it up without coming off so blunt?(as in not making it seem like you're using these numbers to figure out how much you can charge them)
But usually there are local rates as well based on your country. These are somewhat pegged to the international rates past a certain level of quality. These can be lower than international rates.
Sometimes you can squeeze an even higher price out of a local contract because you'd add the benefit of more strongly understanding the problem, better communication in terms of time zone, language, and face to face interaction. Plus there's some security in meeting a person face to face.