Rates & pricing
What to charge, when to raise it, and how to price a project, a day or a rush job.
16Tools in this section
- 001 Hourly rate calculator From target income to a defensible quote.
- 002 What should I charge? quiz Your income floor crossed with sourced market benchmarks.
- 003 W-2 vs 1099 rate calculator What a salary is really worth as a contract rate.
- 004 Project price calculator From an hourly estimate to a fixed quote with margins.
- 005 Rate converter Hourly to day, week, month, year, on real billable time.
- 006 Billable hours calculator How many billable hours your year really holds.
- 007 Day rate calculator Price a booked day, premium included.
- 008 Rate increase calculator What a raise earns and how much churn it survives.
- 009 Rush fee calculator Deadlines cost extra. Price the premium.
- 010 Scope creep calculator What free extras really cost you per year.
- 011 Break-even rate calculator The survival rate every quote must clear.
- 012 Retainer calculator Reserved hours priced for predictable revenue.
- 013 Hourly to salary calculator What your contract hourly rate equals as a W-2 salary, benefits included.
- 014 Per-word rate calculator What a per-word rate really pays per hour.
- 015 Effective hourly rate calculator What you actually earned per hour worked.
- 016 Income goal calculator The hourly rate your income target actually requires.
08Guides in this section
- Price a productized service without losing the margin A repeatable $2,000 service still needs a scope limit. Model delivery hours, revisions, and overruns before putting a fixed price on the page.
- Should you charge for discovery calls? Use call length, conversion rate, and your hourly floor to decide when a free introduction becomes paid diagnostic work.
- Freelance rates in Spain: a rate that survives the quota Why the rate you copied from a salary ruins you, how to compute the real floor with the Social Security quota and income tax inside, and when to say no.
- 1099 vs W-2: the real take-home math Why dividing a salary by 2,080 hours is a trap, what employer benefits are worth in dollars, and the conversion in both directions.
- How many billable hours are in a year? Fewer than you think The arithmetic from 2,080 theoretical hours down to the 1,100 to 1,300 a real freelancer sells, and why every rate depends on it.
- How to handle scope creep without losing the client Where creep starts, the one-sentence reflex that stops it, and what absorbing free work costs per year.
- How to set your freelance rate (without guessing) A working method for pricing your work: cost floor, market ceiling, and the number you quote. With the math shown.
- Retainer vs hourly: which one wins, and when What a retainer really sells, how to price the discount, and the three contract lines that keep reserved hours from becoming unlimited work.