A sidenote to 'keep raising your rates'. At some point, for some sort of work, you really will be pricing yourself out of that market. I've had people express that concern to me "I'll never get the job if I quote that much!", etc.
My response years ago was to adjust the price down some (and I did it myself) and sometimes you'd get the job.
My advice now, typically, is ... don't go for that type of work. Don't bid on that project. If what you're bidding on is commoditized to the point where anyone can do it for 5x less than you want to charge, find another type of skill to enhance and sell that.
This approach isn't for everyone, obviously, but I'm finding it works. This might just be a variation of "go where the competition isn't"?
This is excellent advice. I found the exact same thing. I was getting underbid by less qualified workers for projects of X nature. I learned a little bit about Y, and now I have to raise my rates again to slow the work down.
Also, rates depend on the work required by the client. If you are purely doing some frontend/interface work, it is reasonable to adjust that rate differently from backend work.
Another note is that rates should fluctuate depending on timelines from the client, their budget and requirements. A healthy balance of determining all those factors and your ability to estimate your abilities to complete work can result in a wider range of price ranges - either fixed/hourly/weekly/monthly, etc.
Most of this can only be figured out through lots of experience.
My response years ago was to adjust the price down some (and I did it myself) and sometimes you'd get the job.
My advice now, typically, is ... don't go for that type of work. Don't bid on that project. If what you're bidding on is commoditized to the point where anyone can do it for 5x less than you want to charge, find another type of skill to enhance and sell that.
This approach isn't for everyone, obviously, but I'm finding it works. This might just be a variation of "go where the competition isn't"?