Totally gorgeous design! Well done.

Looks great!

One question tho, for a startup like myself (and theres probably others on here as well) How do you work out your actual expenses for the year so that you can input them into the form?

Good question Tyler, in fact that is probably a whole blog post in itself! I think the key is to simply break it down as much as possible and estimate your way through. Its a bit like estimating how long a job is going to take, if you break it down it becomes a lot more manageable. Unfortunately until you’ve done this for a year and compared back to your estimates, there is always going to be a bit of guesswork involved.

Wow, Colis, You never stop surprising me. Amazing job!

The calculator works great and should be a big help!

The only thing I would add is the ability to save the form so that you can come back later and tweak the numbers when you have a better approximation of what some of your expenses might be. I am not looking forward to calculating all those numbers again.

awesome! this is very helpful to me esp. since i am just starting up my business …thanks

Nice too bad it doesn’t really add up if you only work freelance parttime.

First of all, the design is great! I really love it. But I have a major problem with this.

“Remember your hourly rate should always take into account factors like market demand, industry standards, skill level and experience”

In my opinion this should be all that determines your hourly rate! I don’t want to be paying a noob $100/hour just because he rents a fancy apartment in a posh neighborhood. While it certainly feels nice calculating your rate based on how much money you need to make, to be fair to your clients you should be calculating it based on the value of the services you offer. I’d say if you do use this calculator you have to be prepared to drastically alter the end result after taking into consideration demand/skill/experience.

But I think that part shouldn’t be an afterthought, but rather it should be the foundation of deciding your rate. If you aren’t good enough to be charging a rate that pays for your fancy apartment, then you shouldn’t be renting a fancy apartment, or you shouldn’t be freelancing. Basically don’t let the rest of your life decide your rate. Let your skill and value decide your rate and you may have to adjust the rest of your life to match.

@ Benek

You raise a good point, but no noob is going to get paid $100/hour.

Clients will pay what a freelancer is worth.

I see this calc more as a guide for experienced freelancers who aren’t so adept in doing sums - and isn’t that all of us?

@Tyler & Ryan, Good point, I’ll have a think about how to put tax into the equation. The trouble with tax is its so variant for different countries

@Benek, I agree, this of this more as a tool. if you want to see what you need to charge to meet your costs, you can use the calculator. If I could make a calculator for other factors, trust me I would! When I ran my own calculations, I came out much cheaper than I actually used to charge, though i guess thats a good thing

@Wayde, ah yes, I removed it as there was some sort of problem with the server sending emails that was making adding a comment or approving comments paralyzingly slow. I’ll see if I can get it to work again!

Love the calculator and the sexy design! I would have loved the option to input prices in a different currency, say sterling.

Hey chaps,

Keep a note of all he cool ideas and if there proves to be enough of a demand then I’ll have a think about extra features if you like!

Lewis

Er, yeah taxes are a pretty big deal. Especially in the US, you’re tossing out a large chunk of your income 4 times a year. Not including taxes means that final number is really 2/3 of what your hourly rate should be, a pretty big margin of error.

It would be great to add a field for taxes–that can’t be left out. Since it will be different for all countries, maybe just have a field for estimated tax percent?

Fun tool. Worked more as a check that my freelance rate can actually sustain the life I’m living. (Not a real shock, as I’ve been freelance for a few years now–maybe it’s more that my life has moved to fit the rate I’m charging?)

And you do have to keep taxes in mind. I’m still reeling from April 15 (tax day in the US). Not that it was a surprise, but an awfully large check to have to write.

This is absolutely useful!

“The question is, how much above the hourly wage of a salaried employee should a contractor charge to end up at the SAME real compensation.”

I found a set of calculators here that seem to take into account at factors like employment tax, retirement, and insurance. And it’s pretty fast, containing just on interview page that constantly updates.

Beautiful tool you’ve created. For those interested in understanding some of the financial mechanics involved, you can also check out the tool that I created at http://www.xbarit.com/bradblog/index.php/2007/10/12/billable-rate-calculator/.