Vocations · Trades and Technical · Creative careers

Price the work
from the pay
you want to keep.

Type what you want to take home, your costs and the hours clients will pay for. The planner adds back self-employment and income tax and gives you a rate and a quote.

Find my rateWhat you get
$5one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $5

Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Job search kit, $29 for 34 items.

The creative freelance planner

The worked example is a freelance illustration and lettering practice. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

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What you get

Vocations · Trades & Technical$5

What you finish with
The revenue the year needs, the hourly rate, a weekly target, a sample project quote and the quarterly tax set-aside, step by step from take-home pay. It prints as a summary and downloads as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
Students and young adults starting freelance work in illustration, design, photography, video, music or writing, and anyone pricing creative work for the first time.
Format
Browser calculator for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Prints a summary; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with the Caveat Academy pass and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Job search kit ($29) and the Vocations Suite pass ($99), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Trades & Technical space in Caveat Vocations.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Decide the take-home pay you need.
  2. List a year of business costs.
  3. Estimate your income tax rate.
  4. Be honest about billable hours.
  5. Quote projects by hours times the rate.

Find my rate

How the rate is worked out

Backward from what you keep to what you charge.

The worked example: freelance illustration and letteringTake home$48,000what you keepBefore taxes$64,241SE and income taxPlus costs$73,241$9,000 a yearPer hour$72.3746 weeks × 22 hoursThe worked example: freelance illustration and letteringTake home$48,000what you keepBefore taxes$64,241SE and income taxPlus costs$73,241$9,000 a yearPer hour$72.3746 weeks × 22 hours
Start from what you want to keep and add back taxes and costs, then divide by hours a client will pay for.

Self-employment tax

Freelancers pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare: 15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings. Half of it is deducted before income tax. The planner solves for the net income that leaves your take-home pay after both taxes. Very high earners also hit the Social Security wage base and the additional Medicare tax, which this leaves out.

Billable hours

A full-time freelancer rarely bills 40 hours. Finding clients, invoicing, revisions and learning new tools take a large share of the week, so the rate is spread over billable hours only, in the weeks you work.

Sources

  1. Internal Revenue Service. Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes) (irs.gov).
  2. Internal Revenue Service. Form 1040-ES, Estimated tax for individuals, with due dates (irs.gov).
  3. U.S. Small Business Administration. Calculate your startup costs and plan your finances (sba.gov).
  4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: arts and design occupations (bls.gov/ooh).

This is a planning estimate, not tax advice; the worked example’s figures are examples. Your entries stay in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.