# How to Price Your Services as a Freelancer (Floor Rate Math)

> How to price your services as a freelancer or agency: work out your floor rate, choose hourly, day rate, project, value or monthly pricing, and offer options.

Canonical: https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/
Last updated: 2026-11-02

[← Read the full guide](https://clientworkhq.net/blog/how-to-price-your-services/)

CLIENT WORK HQ · 7:53 WATCH

Published Oct 19, 2026

[Read the companion guide](https://clientworkhq.net/blog/how-to-price-your-services/)

Our #1 pick is Workspace369.

THE TAKEAWAY

## Watch it. Put it to work.

Start with your floor rate: yearly business costs plus the pay you want, divided by the hours you can actually bill. In the illustrative example, $84,000 of costs and pay over 1,200 billable hours is $70 an hour. Price above it, pick hourly, day rate, fixed, value-based or a monthly package, and never go below the floor.

**Plan update, November 7, 2026.** Plans changed after this video was recorded. Deposit on acceptance, time tracking, intake forms, Requests and proposal open tracking are now on every Workspace369 plan from Cadet ($29 a month), and calls start on Voyager ($74 a month). Booking pages with deposits, call recording, call queues and phone menus are still on Specialist ($149 a month). Projects are no longer capped: they are unlimited on every plan, including Cadet. The Builder API and webhooks are on every plan. [See current plans ↗](https://workspace369.com/pricing/?utm_source=clientworkhq.net&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=watch-how-to-price-your-services)

[Open on YouTube ↗](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkSRfKm0oW8)[Workspace369 hourly rate calculator ↗](https://workspace369.com/tools/hourly-rate-calculator/?utm_source=clientworkhq.net&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=watch-how-to-price-your-services)

### Read the video transcript +

How to price your services, in two steps. Your floor rate is costs plus your pay, divided by billable hours. Price above it. Then pick a method: hourly, daily, project, value, or monthly. Every method sits on one number.

The least you can charge without losing money: your floor. Start with your yearly costs: software, equipment, insurance, an accountant and marketing. Here, that's $12,000. Count anything you'd still pay with zero clients. Use last year's statements, not a guess.

Next, your pay. Say $72,000 before tax. Add the costs, and you need $84,000 a year. In the US, the self-employment tax rate alone is 15.3 percent.

Income tax comes on top, so pick a pay number that survives both. A good start: what a similar salaried job pays. Then add the benefits you now pay for yourself, like health cover and time off. Now the hours: 52 weeks of 40 hours. Take off four weeks, and the time spent on admin and sales.

That leaves 25 billable hours a week, or 1,200 a year. Twenty-five is just this example. Track a month of your time to find yours. Divide them: $84,000 over 1,200 hours is $70 an hour. That is your floor.

Below $70, every hour of work loses you money. Run your own numbers in the free rate calculator linked below. Your floor isn't your price. It's the line you never go under. On top of the floor, add profit and room for slow months: here, $95 an hour.

Hourly fits work where nobody can define the scope yet, like advice or fixes. The catch: the faster you get, the less you earn per job. Charging hourly? Give a range up front. So the client knows roughly what the bill will be.

Round to a clean number, and raise it as you get faster. Consultants often mix: hourly or daily for discovery, then a project price. A day rate books your whole day. You can't sell those hours to anyone else. So price a full day: eight hours at $95 is $760.

Day rates fit shoots, workshops and on-site work, where the day is the unit. Half days work too. Price them above half your day rate. And cap the day: eight hours, with anything over billed at your hourly rate. For a fixed project price, start from hours anyway.

Estimate the hours, say 20, times your $95 rate, plus a 25 percent buffer for revisions. About $2,400. Then quote the $2,400, not the hours. Clients buy the outcome. Work faster, and you keep the difference.

That's the upside. The risk is scope creep. Write down what is in and what is out. And name the price for extras now, before anyone asks for one. Afterward, compare the real hours with your estimate, so the next quote is sharper.

Value-based pricing starts from what the result is worth to the client. Say a new website brings a client ten customers a year, at $2,000 each. That's $20,000 a year to them. Against your project floor, a $6,000 price is an easy yes for them. Ask on the call: what is this worth to you if it works?

It needs a result you can measure, and a client who shares numbers. Value sets how high you can go. Your floor still sets how low. Ongoing work fits a monthly package: a set scope for a set fee. For example: up to 10 hours of design a month, a two-day turnaround, for $900 a month.

Check it against your floor: 10 hours at $70 is $700. So $900 a month leaves a margin. Bill it at the start of each month, so the work is paid before it's done. Decide what happens to unused hours before the first month starts. Steady monthly work also makes your billable hours easier to hit.

An agency uses the same math with team numbers. Four people who bill 1,200 hours each give you 4,800 hours. Say salaries and overhead come to $420,000 a year. Divided by 4,800 hours, the blended floor is about $88 an hour. Count only the people who bill.

Admin salaries go into overhead. Then quote projects from that blended rate, plus your margin. In a proposal, give two or three options, not one take-it-or-leave-it price. First, mark your project floor, build three options above it, and put your pick in the middle. Each step up adds real scope, like a brand guide or packaging.

Not just a bigger number for the same work. Name them by outcome, like Launch, Grow and Scale, so each name says what they get. Never let the smallest option dip below your floor, even to win the job. My proposal video covers why the middle option matters. It is linked below.

Raise them when you're booked weeks ahead, clients say yes without a question, your costs went up, or a year has passed. Try it on new clients first: quote $110 instead of $95, and watch the replies. Give current clients notice, a month or two ahead. Name the new rate and the date it starts. No apology needed.

A small raise every year is easier than a big one every three. Four pricing mistakes: copying a competitor's rate, forgetting unbilled hours, discounting to win, and never raising. A competitor's rate tells you the market, not your costs. And a discount to win the job usually becomes the price for the next one too. Unbilled hours quietly lower your real rate below the one you quoted.

Here's how that pricing looks in Workspace369, the tool we use to show it. Save each package with its price, add what it costs you to deliver, and the gross margin shows before you quote. Proposals pull from that catalog, so your checked prices go out every time. Options inside one proposal: the client opens it, ticks the optional add-on, and the total updates. Mark any line optional in the editor, and the client decides whether to add it.

Run the timer on Voyager, stop it, bill the hours, and they land on the invoice. Projects carry the budget you priced, the tasks behind it, and progress as work gets done. On Specialist, project profitability shows your margin per project and per client. So after each job, you can see whether your floor held. The catalog and proposals start on Cadet, $29 a month.

Time tracking starts on Voyager, $74 a month. Consultants can price the first step on its own: a short paid assessment. It's easy to say yes to, and it tells you enough to quote the real project. A common ladder: a paid assessment, a fixed-price project, then monthly advice. Each step is priced from the same floor, with your margin on top.

Clients who want you on call can buy a block of hours. Open-ended access quietly turns into unpaid hours. Put a review date on any monthly advice. That way the price keeps up with the work. To recap, costs plus pay, over billable hours, gives your floor.

Pick the method that fits the work, price above the floor, and offer options. Then check your numbers every year, or whenever your costs change. What's your floor rate? Tell me in the comments. The free rate calculator is linked in the description.

JUMP TO A CHAPTER

Choose a chapter to start at that moment.

[0:00Intro](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=0)[0:15How to calculate your hourly rate (the floor)](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=15)[1:28Hourly rate: when it works](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=88)[2:00Day rate vs hourly](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=120)[2:23How to price a project (fixed price)](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=143)[2:57Value-based pricing (with an example)](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=177)[3:26Retainers and monthly packages](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=206)[3:58How to price services as an agency](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=238)[4:25How to present 2 or 3 pricing options](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=265)[4:59When to raise your prices](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=299)[5:24Pricing mistakes to avoid](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=324)[5:47Price, cost and margin in Workspace369](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=347)[6:43How to price your services as a consultant](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=403)[7:15Pricing checklist](https://clientworkhq.net/watch/how-to-price-your-services/?t=435)

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