I consulted for many years of my career and my general rule of thumb is bill at a rate of what you want your annual comp to be divided by 1,000 ($165k/yr / 1000 = $165/hr). This is based on the basic concept of 50% billable or a bit higher with overhead. If you're doing independent you will need to bake in insurance (health and liability), taxes and other costs of running your business. If you beat the 50% billable you're in the money, if you don't then it might be time to find a job.
In your situation if your company bills you out at $165/hr I would push for total comp of $165k (base + bonus + insurance + other benefits). Remember to also factor in risk/reward, if you don’t mind all the risk you can go independent and reap more of what you bill, but if you’re worried about not landing customers then you should consider a job with a company that has a pipeline and can get you billed out quickly. That said don’t overestimate the “safety” of working for a company, if you don’t bill well or they have issues they’ll fire you in an instant.
As a side note when talking to people about setting up their own consulting gig I always remind them that customers pay for what the perceived value is of a resource. If you ask for $75/hr billing you may not get the gig but ask for $250/hr and shockingly they might sign you tomorrow morning. There is an interesting balance between perceived value, asking price and what people will pay vs what they expect to pay. Your asking price actually communicates your confidence you can deliver, and customers have a built in bias on this front and will make pre-conceived judgements based on this simple part of the overall negotiation.
In your situation if your company bills you out at $165/hr I would push for total comp of $165k (base + bonus + insurance + other benefits). Remember to also factor in risk/reward, if you don’t mind all the risk you can go independent and reap more of what you bill, but if you’re worried about not landing customers then you should consider a job with a company that has a pipeline and can get you billed out quickly. That said don’t overestimate the “safety” of working for a company, if you don’t bill well or they have issues they’ll fire you in an instant.
As a side note when talking to people about setting up their own consulting gig I always remind them that customers pay for what the perceived value is of a resource. If you ask for $75/hr billing you may not get the gig but ask for $250/hr and shockingly they might sign you tomorrow morning. There is an interesting balance between perceived value, asking price and what people will pay vs what they expect to pay. Your asking price actually communicates your confidence you can deliver, and customers have a built in bias on this front and will make pre-conceived judgements based on this simple part of the overall negotiation.