Freelancer Finance: Rates, Cash Flow & Taxes Set-Aside

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Turn Nora's target income and overheads into the revenue she needs, count her real billable hours and find the lowest hourly rate that still works.
• Price the same website redesign three ways (by the hour, by the day and by the value to the client) and compare what each earns per hour of work.
• Work out what Nora really keeps from each job after platform and payment fees, compare the channels and gross up a price so a platform job still pays what she needs.
• Price Nora's proposal line by line with a risk-based scope buffer, add a rush fee because the client wants it faster than her normal lead time, and set the deposit.
• Build Nora's invoice tracker: due dates from the payment terms, days overdue for unpaid invoices, an example late fee and the cash she actually collected each month.
• Set a fixed monthly salary from Nora's lumpy revenue forecast, track the business-account buffer month by month, find its low point and chart it.
• Calculate Nora's retirement contribution and quarterly tax set-aside with example rates, turn them into one percentage to move from every payment, and find the top-up she still owes.
• Measure how dependent Nora is on her biggest clients, chart the revenue split and value her open proposals by their chance of winning.