Build the floor.
Line by line. From the ground up.
What does it cost to keep you alive, healthy, and not stressed about money? Enter your monthly amounts — rent, food, transportation, insurance, debt payments, savings. Anything you spend on yourself in a typical month. Don't pad. Don't cut. The truth here produces a number you can defend.
These are the costs of keeping your business operational, regardless of whether you're on a project. Software, office, marketing, insurance, accounting. The thing most creatives forget: these don't stop when the work does. Build them into the floor or you'll be paying for them out of your personal income.
As a self-employed creative, you owe self-employment tax on top of income tax. Most freelancers land between 25–35%. If you're unsure, 30% is a safe starting point. The tool grosses your costs up so the floor rate already accounts for what you'll owe — no end-of-year surprises.
Not every hour you work is billable. Sales calls, admin, marketing, proposals, time off — all of that has to come out of your billable time. Most independent creatives bill 1,000–1,400 hours per year, not the 2,000 a salaried job assumes. The difference is where most pricing breaks.
Enter your real numbers above to see the gap between what most creatives think they need to charge and what they actually need to charge.
Now you know your floor. But a floor isn't a price.
The floor tells you the minimum. The Pricing & Positioning Playbook is the system — how to add margin, price invisible deliverables, build tiered proposals, and present the number with confidence. 74 pages, 12 sections. Built for independent creatives.