One of the prerequisites for a successful negotiation is the willingness to walk away. This applies to both sides. I did consulting for a few years, years ago, and you'd be surprised what people are willing to pay. You'd also never know that unless you named your rate and were willing to walk away. I'm pretty sure any manager at Microsoft could easily swing a couple K. The main complication would be that this wouldn't be just a "meeting" then, and you'd need to set up a contract etc. Not insurmountable, just onerous and time consuming. So I'd insist on a much larger minimum, and would be willing to trade that for a lower price.
> you'd be surprised what people are willing to pay.
At least in my company, it very much depends on who's initiating the meeting. If one of our VPs did, then easy, any amount could be approved. However, if it's a team lead, we'd be told to pound sand.
I assumed other companies would be pretty similar.
But realize, that from the standpoint of the OP someone who can't swing a couple of K also can't swing a couple hundred thousand K _per year_ to hire more contributors or provide other funding to the project. They are, therefore, completely pointless to talk to - the decision makers won't be in the room.
