Compare Freelance Quotes by Skill and Scope
By Andrew James Flores, Nathan Management · Updated September 23, 2026 · Editorial Standards
A quote can only be compared with another quote, or with your own costs, once both are in the same unit and cover the same work. This guide starts with a number for each of ten common freelance skills: the hourly floor you would need to bill to match the national median pay of a full-time employee in the same occupation, computed with the same formula the calculator uses. It then converts each floor into the unit clients actually buy — a word, a day, a month, a project — and walks one website project from scope to quote.
1. Hourly floors for ten skills
Each floor answers one question: to earn, before taxes, what the median employee in this occupation earns in a full-time year, what must every billable hour bring in? The median is the middle of the wage distribution — half of employees in the occupation earn more and half earn less. Each median is from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025 national estimates, median hourly wage, retrieved September 23, 2026. The full-time equivalent multiplies that hourly wage by 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks), the paid hours in a full-time year.
floor = (median hourly wage × 2,080 + $5,000 business costs + $0 benefits) ÷ (billable hours per week × 48 working weeks)
Wide table: swipe or scroll sideways to see every column. With a keyboard, focus the table and use the arrow keys.
| Skill (closest BLS occupation) | BLS median hourly wage | Full-time equivalent (× 2,080) | Floor at 20 h/wk | Floor at 25 h/wk | Floor at 30 h/wk | 25-hour floor ÷ median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software development Software Developers, 15-1252 | $65.38 | $135,990.40 | $146.87 | $117.50 | $97.91 | 1.80× |
| Management consulting Management Analysts, 13-1111 | $48.97 | $101,857.60 | $111.31 | $89.05 | $74.21 | 1.82× |
| Web development Web Developers, 15-1254 | $44.54 | $92,643.20 | $101.72 | $81.37 | $67.81 | 1.83× |
| Marketing and market research Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists, 13-1161 | $37.87 | $78,769.60 | $87.26 | $69.81 | $58.18 | 1.84× |
| Editing Editors, 27-3041 | $37.46 | $77,916.80 | $86.38 | $69.10 | $57.59 | 1.84× |
| Writing and copywriting Writers and Authors, 27-3043 | $36.98 | $76,918.40 | $85.34 | $68.27 | $56.89 | 1.85× |
| Video editing Film and Video Editors, 27-4032 | $36.26 | $75,420.80 | $83.78 | $67.02 | $55.85 | 1.85× |
| Graphic design Graphic Designers, 27-1024 | $30.27 | $62,961.60 | $70.80 | $56.64 | $47.20 | 1.87× |
| Bookkeeping Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks, 43-3031 | $24.36 | $50,668.80 | $57.99 | $46.40 | $38.66 | 1.90× |
| Photography Photographers, 27-4021 | $21.47 | $44,657.60 | $51.73 | $41.39 | $34.49 | 1.93× |
Read down the 25-hour column. Every floor lands between 1.80 and 1.93 times the employee median. Most of that multiplier comes from hours rather than costs: an employee is paid for 2,080 hours a year, while 25 billable hours for 48 weeks sells 1,200, and 2,080 ÷ 1,200 = 1.73. The rest is the assumed $5,000 of business costs spread over those 1,200 hours, which weighs more on lower-wage occupations — that is why photography sits at 1.93 and software development at 1.80.
The practical test: if the rate you are about to quote is close to the employee median for your occupation, you are on course for roughly half of that full-time income. Charging exactly the median for 1,200 hours leaves between 46.5% (photography) and 54.0% (software development) of the full-time equivalent after the $5,000 of costs.
Two adjustments move every row the same way. A personal benefits budget adds its annual amount divided by your sold hours: $10,000 a year for health coverage and retirement contributions adds $8.33 an hour at 1,200 hours (10,000 ÷ 1,200), taking web development from $81.37 to $89.71. Payment losses divide the floor instead: if you expect to collect 98% of what you invoice and lose 3% of collections to card or platform fees, divide by 0.98 × 0.97 = 0.9506, which adds about 5.2% and takes the same web development floor to $85.60.
The floors are income before personal income tax and self-employment tax, just as the BLS wages are pay before income tax. Self-employment tax is 15.3% — 12.4% for Social Security, up to the annual wage base, plus 2.9% for Medicare — applied to 92.35% of net earnings (IRS Tax Topic 554). The self-employment tax guide explains how it is calculated, and the rate floor tables run the same floor formula across eight income goals and six workloads.
2. The floor in the unit you actually quote
Clients rarely buy hours. They buy an article, a month of support, a finished video. Table 2 multiplies each 25-hour floor by an example number of hours for one common unit of work in that skill. The unit shown for each skill is this site’s convention for the examples, chosen as a typical place to begin; your clients may buy the same work in a different unit.
| Skill | Unit (this site’s convention) | Example hours | Hourly floor | Floor per unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software development | Two-week sprint | 50 | $117.50 | $5,875.00 |
| Management consulting | Consulting day | 6 | $89.05 | $534.30 |
| Web development | Five-page small-business website | 40 | $81.37 | $3,254.80 |
| Marketing and market research | Monthly retainer | 20 | $69.81 | $1,396.20 |
| Editing | 1,000 words of copyediting | 1.5 | $69.10 | $103.65 |
| Writing and copywriting | 1,500-word article | 6 | $68.27 | $409.62 |
| Video editing | Three-minute edited video | 12 | $67.02 | $804.24 |
| Graphic design | Logo and basic identity package | 20 | $56.64 | $1,132.80 |
| Bookkeeping | One client’s books for a month | 5 | $46.40 | $232.00 |
| Photography | Half-day shoot plus editing | 8 | $41.39 | $331.12 |
Two rows show why hours move the price more than the hourly rate does. The copyediting unit assumes 1.5 hours per 1,000 words; for a dense technical manuscript that takes 3 hours per 1,000 words, the same $69.10 floor becomes $207.30 per 1,000 words. The consulting day assumes 6 billable hours; if travel and a written summary are part of the day, count them in the hours or price them separately.
These figures are floors: the least each unit can bring in before the plan behind it falls short. Add the calculator’s extra-time allowance and any project-only direct costs before you quote, as the worked example in section 4 does. Author’s practice: price every unit from the hours underneath it, even when the client only ever sees a per-word or monthly figure.
3. Per-word work: let your hours set the price
Per-word rates are the easiest unit to compare and the easiest to misprice, because the word count stays fixed while research, interviews and revisions do not. Table 3 holds the writing floor at $68.27 an hour and varies only the total hours a 1,500-word article takes.
| Total hours, brief to delivered file | Article floor | Per-word floor |
|---|---|---|
| 3 hours | $204.81 | $0.137 |
| 4 hours | $273.08 | $0.183 |
| 6 hours | $409.62 | $0.274 |
| 8 hours | $546.16 | $0.365 |
| 10 hours | $682.70 | $0.456 |
Run it the other way to test an offer. Divide the fee by your hourly floor to get the hours the job can take before it falls short. A $0.10-per-word offer on 1,500 words pays $150, which covers about 2.2 hours at the writing floor; $0.20 pays $300, about 4.4 hours; $0.30 pays $450, about 6.6 hours. If your past articles of this kind took six hours for research, drafting and one revision round, the $0.10 and $0.20 offers fall below your floor and the $0.30 offer clears it with little room for a second revision.
A practical first step is to record the hours per 1,000 words for your last five pieces of each type — blog post, case study, technical article — and price each type from its own average instead of using one per-word rate for everything.
4. Worked example: one website project, from scope to quote
Define the work before you price it. Take a US-remote independent web developer quoting a five-page small-business website with basic accessibility checks, a contact form, two rounds of revisions and a one-hour handoff session. The scope is what makes a comparison fair: a quote for five pages without accessibility checks or a handoff is a different job, even if the page count matches.
- Estimate the hours: 40, counting discovery, build, content loading, testing, revisions and handoff.
- Add the extra-time allowance. The calculator suggests 20% for familiar work with a new client: 40 × 1.2 = 48 planned hours.
- Price the time at the web development floor: 48 × $81.3693… = $3,905.73. The calculator multiplies by the unrounded floor, so the time comes to $3,905.73.
- Add project-only direct costs — $100 in this example, for a stock-photo license — for a quote floor of $4,005.73. With full collection and no fees, the direct costs pass through unchanged.
Now the client says the budget is $3,000. Work backwards: ($3,000 − $100) ÷ $81.3693… = 35.64 planned hours, or 29.70 estimated hours before the 20% allowance. The budget buys about three-quarters of the scope, so the useful reply is a smaller scope at your price — fewer pages, or no handoff session — rather than the same scope at a lower rate.
If the client mentions a $2,500 quote for the “same” site, the same arithmetic says that price covers 24.58 estimated hours at your floor. Ask what it leaves out — accessibility checks, revisions, the handoff, the photo license — before assuming the other developer is simply faster.
5. Make two quotes comparable before comparing prices
Before you put your price next to anyone else’s, write down the same fields for both: service, client market, remote or local, currency, experience required, deliverable, revision limit, usage rights and payment terms. Keep three groups apart — employee wages, advertised prices, and fees a client actually paid — because a listed price shows what someone asked for, which may differ from what a client agreed to pay.
| Skill | Compare this unit | Record before comparing prices |
|---|---|---|
| Web and software development | Hour, sprint, or defined feature or project | Condition of existing code, testing, integrations, deployment, maintenance, and who carries the risk of extra work. |
| Design and illustration | Defined asset, identity package, or design phase | Discovery, number of concepts, revision rounds, source files, usage rights, and handoff to developers. |
| Writing and copywriting | Word, or a scoped article or campaign | Research, interviews, word count, fact-checking, revisions, licensing, and distribution rights. |
| Editing | 1,000 words or a full manuscript | Level of edit (proofread, copyedit, or developmental), subject difficulty, style guide, number of passes, and turnaround. |
| Marketing services | Month with a defined service scope | Channels, campaign volume, reporting, creative production, setup, and whether ad spend is included or billed separately. |
| Consulting and strategy | Day, engagement, or monthly capacity | Meetings, analysis, implementation, availability, decision authority, and acceptance criteria. |
| Video editing | Edited project or finished minute | Volume of raw footage, number of versions, color and sound work, music licensing, captions, and delivery formats. |
| Photography | Session, half day, or day plus delivered images | Shoot time, travel, number of edited images, retouching level, usage license, and delivery deadline. |
| Bookkeeping | Month per client | Transaction volume, number of accounts, reconciliation schedule, payroll or sales-tax work, and any catch-up months. |
Do not set an agency quote that includes a team and ongoing support against a quote from one contractor for production alone, and keep W-2 contract employment separate from independent contracting. A matching job title does not make scope, rights, tax treatment or risk equivalent.
6. Put your own numbers in the calculator
The tables use one set of assumptions for every skill; your floor depends on your own. In the calculator, enter:
- Personal income goal, before taxes ($/year) — the full-time equivalent from Table 1, or your own target.
- Business operating costs ($/year) — software, equipment, insurance and professional fees. The tables use $5,000.
- Personal benefits budget ($/year) — dollars for health coverage and retirement that your income goal does not already include.
- Billable hours per working week and Weeks with no billing each year — hours you can sell, not hours you work.
- Invoices eventually collected (%) and Fees on collected payments (%) — your realistic write-offs and card or platform fees.
- Current or proposed rate ($/hour) — the hourly equivalent of the quote you are testing.
A typical opening assumption for billable hours is 25 a week, the calculator default. If sales, administration and unpaid revisions take more than a third of your working week, test 20 instead. Table 1 shows what that change does: every floor rises by 25%, because 1,200 sold hours become 960. Use Download plan (.txt) to keep the assumptions behind each comparison.
7. Keep a record of each comparison
The benchmark evidence methodology explains how to date sources, remove duplicate postings, and keep advertised amounts apart from collected ones. The benchmark evidence worksheet (CSV) has a column for each of those fields, and it comes with the two records in Table 5 already filled in as example rows (each comparison_notes cell begins with “Example row”), followed by three empty rows. Table 5 shows those two records: the web developer wage from Table 1, recorded under the employee_wage class, and the $2,500 competing quote from section 4, recorded under advertised_quote, the class for a price someone else offered. Public sources go in source_url; a private record such as a client email goes in private_evidence_reference. Leave a cell blank when the record does not supply it, and say why in limitations.
| Worksheet column | Record 1: employee wage | Record 2: competing quote |
|---|---|---|
evidence_class | employee_wage | advertised_quote |
scope_definition | Web Developers, United States, all industries | Five-page small-business website, as described in the client email |
source_url | https://www.bls.gov/oes/ | Leave blank |
private_evidence_reference | Leave blank | Client email of 2026-09-18 |
observation_date | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-18 |
reference_period | May 2025 | Leave blank |
occupation_code | 15-1254 | 15-1254 |
occupation_title | Web Developers | Web Developers |
geography | United States | US remote |
currency | USD | USD |
employment_status | Employee | Independent contractor |
price_unit | Hour | Fixed project fee |
wage_cell | $44.54 | Leave blank |
quoted_amount | Leave blank | $2,500.00 |
total_project_hours | Leave blank | Leave blank |
inclusion_decision | Included | Included |
limitations | National median hourly wage for employees, before the conversion to a freelance floor | Relayed by the client; hours, revision rounds, accessibility checks and handoff not stated |
comparison_notes | Example row: floor to match this wage at 25 billable hours with the calculator defaults: $81.37 an hour | Example row: covers 22.64 estimated hours at the $87.72 floor (after $100 of direct costs, $116.96 once grossed up, and a 20% extra-time allowance), against 40 for your scope; your project check for that scope is $4,327.49 (section 6 of the benchmark evidence methodology guide). |
Finish each comparison with three notes: the nearest comparable quote and where it came from; what differs from your scope; and which of your assumptions the decision depends on. When you find no comparable quote, write that down too — it tells you to rely on your floor and your scope for this job. Keep client names and confidential figures out of anything you share.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national median hourly wage for each occupation in Table 1: bls.gov/oes (retrieved September 23, 2026).
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS frequently asked questions, for how the estimates are produced.
- BLS public API series for each median: OEUN0000000000000 + the six-digit SOC code without its hyphen + 08 (for example, OEUN000000000000015125408 for Web Developers).
- Internal Revenue Service, Tax Topic 554, Self-employment tax, and Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes).
- Floors use the calculator’s formula shown in section 1.