The project takes six hours. Except for the half-hour briefing call, the quote, the research, the file exports and the email that begins with ‘one last thing’. Somewhere along the way, six hours has acquired a small entourage.
That is why picking an hourly rate can feel slippery. You are pricing work that people can see while also supporting the quieter work that lets it happen. You do not need a perfect number on your first attempt. You need a starting point you can explain and improve.
Meet your invisible hours
For a week or two, note the time spent on delivery, meetings, admin, finding work and maintaining your tools or skills. You do not need to invoice every category. The point is to see where your working capacity goes.
A café cannot sell every minute it spends cleaning the espresso machine, but that time still belongs in the business. Your quoting, backups and invoice follow-ups deserve a place in the picture too.
Use a realistic denominator
Imagine a fictional solo business aiming for A$96,000 in annual revenue to cover its chosen mix of business costs and owner income. If it realistically expects 1,000 billable hours, that implies an average A$96 per billable hour. Divide by 2,000 instead and the result is A$48, but the second calculation assumes twice as many hours can be sold.
These numbers are invented to demonstrate the calculation. A$96 is not a recommended rate or take-home pay. Tax, leave, superannuation, insurance and your business structure need consideration in your own plan. Check the assumptions with an adviser where needed.
Look beyond what another freelancer charges
A rate from a forum is a clue, not a verdict. Compare the scope, experience, customer, location, rights and support included in the work. Two people using the same software may be solving quite different problems.
Costs help identify whether a price is workable. Customer needs and the value of the result also matter. If a budget does not fit the full service, consider a smaller clearly defined offer rather than quietly promising the same work for less.
Check the rate against a real project
Suppose a fictional A$900 project takes ten delivery hours and five hours of calls, revisions and admin. The revenue across all fifteen hours is A$60 per hour before expenses and tax. That does not automatically make the project a mistake, but it gives you a better comparison than counting only the delivery time.
After a few jobs, compare your estimates with the actual effort. Look for repeated sources of extra work and decide whether they need a clearer scope, a different process or a different price. Change one assumption at a time so you can tell what helped.
A small next step
Choose one recent project and add up the whole effort, including the invisible hours. Use that as a conversation with your future pricing, rather than a reason to criticise the past version of you who quoted it.
Keep those notes close to your quote and work records. Lufu’s work log can help you capture the effort while it is fresh, so the next price comes from something firmer than a late-night guess.