It sounds like you are doing $10k-$20k jobs in a few days or weeks.
Charge way more than you're charging. If you're successfully building our their entire backend, their internal tools and their automation in a few weeks, you should be charging for a few months instead of a few weeks.
In your case, it sounds like project work is better for you. I wouldn't recommend that you work hourly since that's probably where you're being burned. If you quote a REST API, automation system and internal tools for $10k-$30k and you finish it in 2 weeks, then you're golden and so is the startup since they just saved a lot of time.
I would highly recommend that you get on retainers with your clients. If they appreciate your work, and need help from time-to-time, you shouldn't be charged for 1 hour whenever they need you. They should pay for you to be available for them, so perhaps try to get on $500 - $1000 / month retainers. They may only need you a few times a month, but you're not billing them for $100-$200 for 1 hour of work, what a bad deal for you (and a great deal for them!)
Charge way more than you're charging. If you're successfully building our their entire backend, their internal tools and their automation in a few weeks, you should be charging for a few months instead of a few weeks.
In your case, it sounds like project work is better for you. I wouldn't recommend that you work hourly since that's probably where you're being burned. If you quote a REST API, automation system and internal tools for $10k-$30k and you finish it in 2 weeks, then you're golden and so is the startup since they just saved a lot of time.
I would highly recommend that you get on retainers with your clients. If they appreciate your work, and need help from time-to-time, you shouldn't be charged for 1 hour whenever they need you. They should pay for you to be available for them, so perhaps try to get on $500 - $1000 / month retainers. They may only need you a few times a month, but you're not billing them for $100-$200 for 1 hour of work, what a bad deal for you (and a great deal for them!)