A Freelance Mentors Summit Program Toolkit
Walk through your expenses, taxes, runway, and capacity. We'll show you the minimum and target hourly rates the life you actually live requires. Then chart your pricing against sales to set goals.
Lay out your expenses, taxes, and the runway you're working with.
We derive the minimum hourly rate that keeps the lights on.
Set a target rate, then test packages and scenarios against it.
Most freelance rate calculators run the same shallow math: take your target income, add expenses, divide by billable hours. That number ignores the costs an employer used to absorb, so it quietly sets you up to earn less than you did on payroll.
Pricing Compass builds your rate from the full picture:
The result is an hourly rate that covers the life you actually live, instead of a number that looks fine until the first tax bill lands.
Pricing Compass is built for freelancers who are already doing the work and want pricing power to match. If you have been taking whatever rate an agency, platform, or client hands you, this is how you find the floor you should never drop below and a target worth working toward.
It fits whether you are:
You do not need to be a spreadsheet person. If you can answer plain questions about your costs and your month, Pricing Compass does the math.
Two numbers you can defend. Your floor is the minimum hourly rate that keeps you solvent once every real cost is counted. Your target is the rate that builds margin and savings, not just enough to cover this month's bills.
From there you can test a day rate, a monthly retainer, or a fixed-price project against the same honest baseline, so you know what each one really pays. When your costs or your goals change, come back and the numbers move with you.
Pair it with the Niche Navigator to sharpen who you serve, and your rate stops being a guess.
Start from the income you need, then add every cost an employer used to cover: self-employment tax, healthcare, retirement, insurance, and the non-billable hours you spend running the business. Divide by the hours you can realistically bill - the portion left after admin and sales, well short of a full 40-hour week. Pricing Compass walks you through each piece and does the arithmetic for you.
Yes. Those are the costs most freelance rate calculators leave out, and they are exactly what separates a rate that works from one that looks fine until the bills arrive. Pricing Compass folds self-employment taxes, healthcare, retirement, and insurance into your floor.
Your floor is the minimum you can charge and still cover every real cost. Drop below it and you are paying to work. Your target is the rate that builds margin and savings on top of that. Pricing Compass gives you both, so you know where the line is and what you are aiming for.
Most calculators use naive math (income plus expenses, divided by hours) and skip the costs of being self-employed. Pricing Compass includes taxes, healthcare, retirement, insurance, non-billable time, runway, and capacity, then lets you test day rates, retainers, and project pricing against that baseline.
Especially then. If your rate was set by habit or by what a client offered, Pricing Compass shows you whether it actually covers your costs and gives you a defensible number to raise it to. Working freelancers use it to find out how far under their floor they have been running.
Any time your costs, goals, or capacity shift - a health-insurance change, a move, a slow season, a new savings goal. Pricing Compass saves your baseline, so you can come back, update what changed, and see your new floor and target without starting over.