How to price freelance work without guessing
Start with capacity economics, then adjust for scope, risk, urgency and value. A sustainable floor is more useful than copying somebody else’s hourly rate.
Calculate your floor
Add the monthly income you need, business expenses, taxes or statutory obligations you are responsible for, and a buffer for downtime. Divide that by realistic billable hours, not total hours worked.
If you work 160 hours in a month but only 90 can reliably be billed, pricing on 160 hours underestimates the rate required to sustain the business.
Price the scope and risk
Fixed-price projects should include uncertainty, revision boundaries and dependency risk. A project that depends on an undocumented third-party API carries more risk than a repeatable design task, even if both take similar visible effort.
Use milestones for larger projects so payment and feedback occur before the entire scope is complete.
Write the assumptions
A proposal should state what is included, what is excluded, who supplies content/data/access, how many revision cycles are included, payment terms and what happens when scope changes. Clear commercial boundaries protect the relationship as much as they protect margin.
Keep the useful part, not just the reading.
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