Hourly rates for software developers (contractors)

I’ve been chatting with recruiters for the last 2 weeks about software developer contract roles, all of them ranging between $70-$85 per hour. These are roles that range between 3 and 6 months of length.

I’ve read most of the 2024 salary guides, and they state senior rates start at $110 per hour. With my skill level I believe I could be pushing for at least $95-$100 per hour (my background is listed below), but is this realistic? With no full time contracting experience I really have no idea. Should I set my bar at $100 per hour, or start at a lower rate ($70-$80), working my way up over the next few years? If I can grow $5 every 6 months that could be very profitable eventually.

Background: working as a senior dev (full stack). Have 6+ years of experience primarily with SaaS web apps; have led 2 projects releases (start to finish) with small teams (<5); good with mentoring juniors; I’m a good dev, not a genius—grinding on a daily basis to git gud; know my stack quite well (React/Node/AWS/Elixir); have limitations predominantly with infra ie Terraform/k8s. The only contracting I’ve done in the past has been part-time, I use lower rates there because my clients know I still have a primary job, so we create a happy compromise in the middle.