Price Your Design Work Without Apology

Every time you discount without a floor, you're guessing. And the guess is usually wrong — not because you're bad at math, but because you've never added up what a month actually costs you to operate. Without a Personal Rate Floor, a $1,200 logo project that 'feels low' might genuinely cover your costs, or it might not. You won't know until rent is late. The Loaded Hour Cost calculation closes that gap: it converts your real monthly expenses into a minimum hourly equivalent, and that number anchors every quote you build after this.

Gathering your cost data takes one focused session. Pull three months of bank and credit card statements — three months, not one, because a single month misses quarterly software renewals, a slow billing cycle, or an irregular expense like a new font license. Separate what you find into two columns: business costs and personal costs. Business costs are the ones that disappear if you stop freelancing: Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, your Notion workspace, a dedicated business phone line, professional liability insurance, and any advertising spend. According to sdocpa.com, deductible self-employed business expenses reported on IRS Schedule C include advertising, software subscriptions, home office, supplies, internet and phone service, professional development, and business insurance [8]. Personal costs — groceries, streaming subscriptions, gym membership — belong in the second column because they exist whether or not you freelance. The reason the line matters: your Loaded Hour Cost must cover both columns. Business costs alone don't keep you solvent; personal costs alone don't reflect what the work actually requires to produce.

The formula itself is straightforward. Add your average monthly business costs to your average monthly personal costs, divide that total by 80 — which is 20 billable hours per week multiplied by four weeks. The result is your Loaded Hour Cost: the minimum you need to earn per billable hour before a project starts costing you money. Your Personal Rate Floor sits just above that number, rounded to the nearest five dollars, to give you a thin buffer for unexpected expenses.

Example · illustrativeA freelance designer calculates $3,200 in combined monthly costs. $3,200 ÷ 80 = $40.00 per Loaded Hour. She sets her Personal Rate Floor at $45 to build in a small buffer. According to ManyPixels, mid-level freelance designers charge $45–$85 per hour for standard work [1], so a $45 floor is at the low end of that range — workable for now, but worth revisiting at the next 90-Day Rate Review.