What to charge, how to raise it, and the four costs your rate has to cover.
A $90,000 salary is not $43 an hour of contract work. It is closer to $105, and the gap is not greed — it is the things the job was paying for that nobody hands a contractor. This converts a salary into the rate that leaves you where you were. The two numbers every other…
Two sentences stop most of it, both in the agreement. One is a numbered deliverables list that closes with “work not listed is outside the scope of this agreement.” The other caps revisions and names a price: “the fee includes two rounds; additional rounds and out-of-scope work are billed at $150 per hour, on a…
In May 2025 the middle half of US graphic designers earned $23.58 to $39.34 an hour, web developers $30.88 to $60.69, and management consultants $37.48 to $64.12. Those are Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, and they are wages paid to employees. As a freelancer you have to charge close to double the median to land…
Give thirty days’ notice for an ordinary increase and sixty for a large one. Ten to twenty percent is the range that goes through without a fight. Put the new rate and its start date in one short email, tie the date to a boundary the client already has on their calendar — a renewal,…
Clear scope, flat fee. Unclear scope, hourly. That is the whole rule, and the reason behind it matters more than the rule itself. The two models point your incentives in opposite directions. On a flat fee, getting faster pays you more. On an hourly rate, getting faster pays you less. Everything else follows from that….
The formula is (what you want to keep + your tax set-aside + your business costs) ÷ your billable hours. The trap is the last number. Almost every rate calculator divides by 2,080 — 40 hours times 52 weeks — and leaves the tax line out entirely. You do not bill 2,080 hours, and about…