No matter how good we are in delivering our projects, clients will still think that we're not worth paying for. Welcome to reality.

In addition to that, they don't foresee the perks we gave them along the process of development eg the reduction of technical debt plus easier management and troubleshooting of their own codebase. Sucks to be a freelancer, ain't it?

Even worse, when asking for more payment, the client has to make me justify payment by pointing out which lines of code that I've done. Lovely.

People have a hard time putting value to things they don't fully understand, or things they think they understand. There's this phenomenon of almost an entire generation thinking they're tech savvy and know how to use computers, when really, all they know how to do is install apps. But at the first sign of trouble, they need to seek out a "real techie" to fix their problem, while they undermine their expertise. I've had a lot of clients/bosses like this. I wish I had a solution.

Once there was a sales manager who was sent to "oversee" (read over-the-shoulder supervise) one of our last-minute "emergency projects". He verbally told us that he was angry at developers for knowing what we know and at how much we were getting paid for it. Not the "man I wish I knew what you knew" kind of angry. He was literally angry. That project sucked so bad.

Perhaps a more personal connection with the client? It makes it easier to communicate and interpret.