When I'm making a bid or just charging hourly, my rate is $45/hr. Is that reasonable?
If you can charge $45/hour your doing very well for yourself. I start new developers at about $15-18/hour and raise to $20-25 after 3-5 years of experience with the same company. Until your managing a team of developers, you plateau at about 48-50K/year.
As a freelancer you are going to want to charge a bit more, perhaps, because benefits, sick pay, etc are not typically included in temporary employment, but that is only about 15-20% of your hourly rate, depending on how good you expect benefits to be.
I've been in this field for a long time, my hourly pay at work is less than $25/hour - freelance I charge $40/hour - but being gainlfully employed I am allowed to be selective but don't always get the gig either.
If you apply to contract work with small agencies (bigger agencies likely won't take independent contractors unless you are highly recognized or a small firm yourself) I think you will find many unwilling to pay anything above $20/hour for an entry level developer. I have worked for several agencies stateside, in Canada, UK and Australia and even before recession, that was about the best hourly rate. I lost more contracts when I bumped the price until I started promoting project management, quality assurance, etc as a skillset.
Try for $45/hour - if you land a gig we need to talk cause thats damn good money where I'm from - which is far cheaper than most cities in North American in terms of cost of living but still.
Cheers,
Alex