Step · Valued
The Consulting Rate Floor
Enter your answers, then provide your email to view and receive your result.
The minimum defensible consulting rate is not what you charge. It is the number below which every hour worked loses ground.
What this reveals. One number: the minimum hourly rate that replaces a salary equivalent after self-employment taxes, benefits you fund yourself, and the hours you do not bill.
What it does not do. It does not tell you what to charge. It reveals where the floor sits, so what you charge above it is deliberate.
What annual salary would this consulting income replace?
The compensation an employer would pay you to do comparable work. Base plus expected bonus if applicable. Enter a number, not a range.
How many weeks off per year?
Vacation, holidays, sick time, and any week you would not bill a client. Federal holidays alone are about two weeks.
How many hours per week do you work?
Total working hours across billable and non-billable activity. Include admin, business development, learning, and delivery.
What percentage of your working hours are billable?
The rest goes to admin, business development, learning, sales, and any activity you do not invoice. Independent consultants commonly run between 35 and 65 percent.
What overhead multiplier covers taxes, benefits, and business costs?
Self-employed contractors pay the full self-employment tax (roughly 15.3 percent), fund their own health insurance and retirement, and carry business overhead. This multiplier grosses up the salary equivalent so the take-home is comparable. If you are unsure, pick "moderate."
per hour, at the assumptions you selected
This is the floor. It is the minimum hourly rate that replaces the salary equivalent after self-employment taxes, benefits you fund yourself, and the working hours you do not bill.
It is not a recommended rate. It is not your Invoice Number. It is not a compensation benchmark and it is not financial or tax advice. It is the number below which every hour worked loses ground.
The floor shifts when the assumptions shift. Three scenarios from the same salary equivalent:
Assumptions used: salary equivalent, weeks off, hours per week, billable utilization, and overhead multiplier, all inputs you selected. No tax is calculated. The overhead multiplier you selected is the only gross-up applied, and it is not tax advice. Consult a CPA for tax planning specific to your entity structure.
Provide your email to view and receive your result.
Your email is required to view and receive your result. We’ll send your result and its accompanying checklist to this address.
The email includes the financial result this tool calculated for you. Use an address where you want to receive it. Receiving your result does not add you to the Register waitlist or to our email briefing. Get The Number Answer instantly, short emails from Cynthia, and first word when the Register opens on October 19. It does not subscribe you to our email briefing. Privacy notice
This floor is the hourly rate that covers the salary equivalent, the overhead multiplier you selected, and the unbillable time you entered. It is a cost figure. It does not establish what a buyer will pay.
If a proposal is due and the fee above this floor is still unsettled, the open question is what your records of results support. Decision Desk™ examines that evidence and prepares a documented position for the proposal. If no proposal is pending, this floor is enough to work from.
Bring one date to the Review: the proposal deadline or the day the new rate takes effect. If it is not set, say so.
Discuss the fee behind my proposal
The Private Decision Review determines whether the Decision Desk™ is appropriate for the decision in front of you. The Decision Desk™ investment is $5,000, invoiced after acceptance. Nothing is charged for the Review, and submitting it creates no obligation on either side. You remain the decision-maker and negotiator.
Not sure what your next step is? Open the guide. Five short questions. No calculations, no email.
Decision Guide
What is happening that brought you here today?
BWWL®’s automated guide helps you identify a useful next step. Please omit names and confidential information.
How your information is used
- This is an automated guide, not a conversation with Cynthia. What it says it understood is not her judgment. It does not calculate, value, or predict anything.
- To respond, what you type is sent, with the guide’s running summary, to Anthropic’s language service, which interprets it. The Lab does not keep it for that purpose. Anthropic keeps requests for 30 days and does not use them to train its models. That is separate from BWWL®’s research retention below, which happens only if you accept.
- Nothing is kept by the Lab unless, after your recommendation, you accept a separate research permission. Declining, or leaving the page, keeps nothing. Your words never enter the page address, your browser’s storage, or analytics.
- If you accept, the conversation, the guide’s summary, the suggestion you were shown, and the time are kept for 24 months, with no name, email, or identifier. Research permission is separate from email marketing and from any public use of your words.
- No contact information is needed to receive a recommendation.
Describe the situation in your own words. I’ll ask a few questions to help identify a useful next step.
This guide needs scripts to run. Start with your situation below, or request a Private Decision Review. Browse the Lab Tools · Request a Private Decision Review