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.
Your real floor is 54% higher than what most creatives would guess using a simple salary-to-hourly conversion. That gap is where underpricing lives — and it compounds on every project you quote.
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.