1. Estimate how many hours in your day you will work on projects for clients. Not every part of your day is billable – You’ll have some activities that clients aren’t paying for: business related errands, social media marketing, learning new skills, etc.
2. Estimate how many days off per year you take. The tool factors in weekends already.
3. Add how many days per week you work.
4. Add your desired hourly rate. Your time has value and will be included in your costs along with your expenses. As a new or junior illustrator, the cost of your time may be quite low, but as you progress in your career and learn new skills, the cost of your time should increase.

What is markup?

Markup is the percentage you add on top of your costs to make a profit. If you only bill the client for your expenses and time costs, you will only break even. Marking up your costs is essential to growing your business and making a profit.

We add in markup at this stage so if the client cancels the project and doesn’t pay you for usage, you still make a profit on the project.

What should my markup be?

This is up to you, and you can experiment with it. Your markup rate is useful if the client negotiates prices with you. If you add a 30% markup and the client says: “can you do it cheaper?” then you know you have some flexibility. You could reduce the markup to 25% or 20% for example. The client gets a cheaper price overall, and you know you are still making a profit.

Why do i need a minimum markup?

Setting a minimum markup mitigates risk just in case the project takes a little longer than expected, or you need some additional materials you hadn’t factored in. It’s a buffer.

1. Estimate how many days and/or hours the project will take you to complete.
2. Add a usage multiplier: There are options you can choose here based on the kind of project it is. For projects with very limited licenses, the multiplier may be small, but if the client wants an all media, in perpetuity licence for the work, you can use a higher multiplier.
3. Select an option: Either you need to calculate a price to give to the client, or the client has given you a budget and you need to work out if it’s going to be profitable for you.
4. Enter the budget the client offered.

Based on the details you entered, you can now see:

• What it costs you to do the job (your expenses + time costs)
• Your markup as a percentage, and the currency amount
• The costs + markup are your production cost
• You can also see your usage fee in currency
• Finally you have the total price. This is what you send to the client.

*If the client asks you to itemise the quote, you can send them the production cost figure and the usage fee figure. (Don’t share your markup).