Know your numbers.
Keep your margin.

Which one do you need?

They answer different questions. Find the sentence that sounds like your week.

“I have no idea what to charge.”

Start with the Freelance Rate Calculator. It works backwards from the life you want to fund — take-home pay, tax, health insurance, retirement, time off — and divides by the hours you can genuinely invoice rather than the 2,080 in a nominal year. The answer is a floor to negotiate up from, not a ceiling.

“I’ve been offered a contract instead of a job.”

Use Contract vs Full-Time. A salary quietly includes employer payroll taxes, health premiums, a retirement match and paid time off. It converts a salary into the contract rate that actually replaces that package — and converts a rate back the other way, so you can judge an offer either direction.

“How much of this invoice isn’t really mine?”

The Quarterly Tax Set-Aside calculator gives you a percentage to park from every payment, plus the four US quarterly payment dates. It runs real self-employment tax, federal brackets and the QBI deduction rather than a flat rule of thumb, so the number holds up at higher incomes where the rules of thumb quietly stop working.

“The agency quoted a day rate. Is it any good?”

The Day Rate Calculator is built for UK and European contracting, where day rates are the norm. It compares inside and outside IR35 on the same rate — including the employer National Insurance, Apprenticeship Levy and umbrella margin that come out of an assignment rate before you’re paid anything.

“A client wants me on retainer.”

The Retainer Calculator prices the monthly fee, then does the part that decides whether the deal was any good: dividing it by the hours you actually deliver. A retainer quoted at $150 an hour can pay $91 once the unlogged calls and revisions are counted. It also models rollover hours, which are a liability rather than a saving.

“Should this project be fixed price or hourly?”

Fixed Price vs Hourly replaces “it depends” with arithmetic: a quote built from honest hours, the overrun this kind of work actually runs, and a premium for carrying the risk — plus the break-even where fixed stops beating hourly. It also judges a budget the client names.

“My side gig is making money — I think.”

Side Hustle Profit answers the question revenue can’t: what it pays per hour once platform fees, expenses, and tax come out. Side income stacks on top of your salary, so it’s taxed from the first dollar at your highest rate plus self-employment tax — $1,500 a month of sales can genuinely work out to $20 an hour.

“Everyone says I should be an S-corp.”

S-Corp vs Sole Prop runs both returns side by side with the parts the pitch skips: the QBI deduction your salary gives back, the payroll and 1120-S costs, and the wage base that capped the tax anyway. Sometimes the answer is yes — this shows you at what profit.

“The pipeline has gone quiet.”

Freelance Runway tells you how many months you actually have — after subtracting the tax you already owe, which is the single most common way freelancers overestimate their position. It also prices each lever in months, so “cut £300” or “land one more retainer” becomes a concrete number of extra weeks rather than a vague reassurance.