How to Define Your Hourly Rate?
It seems that hourly rate calculators are getting more necessary in today’s world. Since more and more people decide to work remotely as freelancers, solopreneurs, digital nomads or business owners, calculating the precise hourly rate is getting more challenging. That’s why people are looking for convenient ways to define how much they should charge for their work.
Hourly rate calculator helps to quickly determine the estimated hourly rate of your services. But there are several important aspects which you should take into consideration when setting the quota for your work:
- taxes,
- healthcare,
- insurance,
- savings,
- retirement,
- equipment necessary for doing your job, etc.
Then there are other expenses like paying for an accountant, expenses related to traveling or promoting your business. You should also consider such aspects of your work as your location, experience, and profession.
Next to that is the problem of overcharging and undercharging. Both will be harmful to you and your business. Overcharging will make your potential clients look for cheaper offers among your competitors, while undercharging will make you struggle to make both ends meet. So you need to find a balance.
Here, we’ll present you with a smart hack extremely helpful in defining your hourly rate. And that is using time tracking software as an hourly rate calculator on the example of TimeCamp. Let’s get right to it!
Analyze: Monthly Salary to Hourly Salary
The first step to use TimeCamp as your hourly rate calculator is to start tracking your work hours. Once you do that, the software will gather all the data; how you spend your time during work, and what you spend the most time on.
One crucial aspect here is to analyze your activity not only in terms of an hourly rate but also work efficacy. Why? Because you will be able to see how much time you actually spend on productive activities – work, and how much time you waste on those unproductive. It’ll help you better determine your hourly rate and precisely see how much it costs you to do your job, and how much you could actually save.
TimeCamp has a convenient feature of automatically measuring your activity, no matter what you do. It follows your every step to later, at the end of the day, week or month, show you how you spent your work hours. And in the desktop app, you can easily switch between different tasks and projects.
Hence, it works as a fantastic hourly rate calculator because it allows you to precisely see how much time you need to finish a certain project. And if in your job you work on various projects for which it’s difficult to determine that one specific hourly rate, TimeCamp can serve as your personal calculator. After some time of using TimeCamp and adjusting it to your needs, you will be able to set specific hourly rates for every project based on time tracked against the previous ones.
With all the information you can analyze how much you earn per month. Then calculate how much you earn per hour.
Additionally, the feature of billable and non-billable hours can be helpful to determine the precise rate for which you want to bill your clients.
Read the interview with Jason Scott Montoya to find out how TimeCamp helps him measure billable hours. Or listen to our interview with him to learn how it helps him bill his clients.
Transparency: Hourly to Salary Chart
Every data you receive back in TimeCamp are neat, transparent reports in the form of adjustable timesheets. Thus, you and your clients can clearly see how much time was spent on every task, and how long it took you to finish the project.
Such reports serve as a salary chart – you get a quick insight into the costs of your work based on hours worked.
With TimeCamp as your hourly rate calculator you can easily determine various things related to hourly rate:
- Track actual project hours to detect project overrun and underrun, and analyze your estimation accuracy and your efficiency.
- Forecast time and costs for future development projects.
- Justify time to your client, and adjust your rates for specific projects.
Monthly Salary Calculator
Using time tracking software as your personal hourly rate calculator is a fantastic idea. Especially if you’re looking for a solution that would help you determine a precise hourly rate. Choose one of these best three options of base salary calculator if you’re looking for a tool that would help you deduct taxes or other similar costs included in your work:
1. PaycheckCITY
This calculator allows you to define your hourly rate with just a few clicks. It includes tax deduction, state, and other important information necessary in calculating rate per hour of your work. However, it is best if you want to include or find out all the information about taxes.
In PayecheckCITY you can also access such calculators as salary, W4, 40(k) and others.
2. calculators.org
In this base salary calculator, it’s possible to convert not only hourly but also weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, and annual costs of your work.
All you have to do is enter the amount of money made in the particular period, and hours you work per week.
3. Clockify Hourly Rate Calculator
Clockify explains in detail how to calculate your hourly rate and provides a calculator for it. But you can also find examples of expenses and how to set your rate including them. Easy and convenient solution.
👉 See the best Clockify alternatives
Base Salary Calculator
It’s a good idea to use hourly rate calculator which deducts taxes and other expenses. However, if you’re a freelancer and need to know exactly how you spend your time during work, try time tracking software.
It will help you determine your hourly rate, number of billable hours, monthly and annual salary. And you will always stay on top of your work.
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