What is your hour actually worth?

Divide what you pay yourself in a year by the number of hours you actually work in a year. If you take home $180,000 and work 55 hours a week across 48 weeks, that is 2,640 hours and a real rate of about $68. Most owners guess high because they think in terms of revenue or their billable rate.

Include your salary and any owner distributions you take, before taxes. Leave out business expenses, payroll for your team, and money you reinvest. On the hours side, count everything: client work, admin, the Sunday catch-up session, and the evening you spent reformatting a proposal.

No. Your billable rate is what you charge a client for an hour of your expertise. Your effective rate is what you actually earn per hour once every unbillable hour is counted. A $250 billable rate paired with a $68 effective rate means a lot of your week is going somewhere that does not pay.

Multiply your weekly admin hours by the weeks you work, then by your effective hourly rate. Fifteen hours a week across 48 weeks is 720 hours, and at $68 an hour that is roughly $49,000 of your own time spent on scheduling, inbox, invoicing, and reporting.

It happens, and it is worth knowing. If your effective rate is $35 and support costs $45 an hour, the calculator shows the difference as a real added cost. That usually means you are working far more hours than your pay reflects, or that automating a few tasks beats hiring for them.

Automate anything that is identical every time, like data moving between two tools or a reminder that always goes out on the same day. Delegate anything that needs judgment, tone, or a decision, like client follow-up, calendar triage, and chasing the information nobody sent.