Real pricing calculator for service business owners — includes owner salary, staff costs, holiday allowance and pension to find your true minimum price per session

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Real Pricing Calculator

Free pricing calculator for service business owners — personal trainers, therapists, beauty pros, photographers, tutors, freelancers. Enter your salary goal, hours, costs, and holiday allowance. Get the minimum price per session you need to break even — and the recommended price that gives you breathing room.

1
Your business type
Tailors benchmarks to your sector
Beauty & aesthetics
Personal training
Tutoring
Photography
Therapy & counselling
Other service
2
Your time
How you split your working week
Hours worked per week40 hrs
Billable hours per week — time with clients22 hrs
Average session length60 min
Weeks holiday per year — weeks off4 wks
3
Your salary & pension
What you need to pay yourself
Monthly take-home salary — after tax£3,000
Monthly pension contribution£100
Tax & NI rate to set aside — typically 20–30%25%
4
Business costs
Your fixed monthly outgoings
Rent, studio or room hire£200
Equipment, supplies & materials£80
Software & tools£50
Insurance & professional fees£30
Marketing & advertising£40
Travel & other expenses£30
5
Staff costs
Leave off if you work solo
I have staff or contractors
Total monthly wages — gross pay for all staff£1,500
Employer NI & pension ~15% on top of wages£225
Contractor payments per month£0
6
Your results
Save your numbers for later
Minimum price per session
£0
Below this you lose money
Recommended price
£0
Min + 20% sustainability buffer
Your real hourly rate
£0
Once all hours are counted
Your take-home salary£0/mo
Pension contribution£0/mo
Tax & NI provision£0/mo
Business costs£0/mo
Staff & contractor costs£0/mo
Total monthly revenue needed£0/mo
Working weeks per year48 wks
Billable sessions per month0
Unpaid admin hours per month0 hrs
Revenue at recommended price£0/mo
Where every £ of your revenue goes
Your take-home 0%
Pension 0%
Business costs 0%
Staff 0%
Tax 0%
Local competitor benchmark Premium
Budget end of market
£35–£45/session
Mid-market averageYou are here
£55–£75/session
Premium end of market
£90–£130/session
Based on 847 similar businesses within 10 miles of your location
See how your price compares locally
Unlock the local competitor benchmark to see where you sit in your market — undercharging, competitive, or premium — based on real businesses near you.
Solo
£29/mo
Growth
£69/mo
Scale
£89/mo
Unlock competitor benchmark →

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Aasure sets your prices, tracks your margin, and flags when a service slips below break-even — automatically, inside the platform.

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Your hourly rate is not your hourly rate

When a personal trainer says they charge £60 an hour, that's not what they actually earn. The hour with the client is paid. The thirty minutes of session prep, the ten minutes of follow-up message, the five minutes of invoicing, the cancelled session that took forty-five minutes to reschedule — none of it is.

This calculator strips that back. You enter what you charge per session, then add the unpaid time that surrounds it. The output is your real hourly rate — the figure that should anchor your annual price review and your decision about whether your current pricing is sustainable.

Most owners discover their real rate is 35-50% lower than the headline number. That's not a problem in itself; what matters is knowing it. Once you know your real rate, you can decide whether to charge more, do less of the unpaid surround, or both. This calculator gives you the number to work from.

Read: What Is Your Real Hourly Rate? →

Common questions

Why isn't my advertised hourly rate my real hourly rate?

Because the rate only counts the hour with the client. The unpaid minutes around every session — prep, travel, comms, admin, rescheduling — bring the real rate down. Most service businesses lose 30-50% of their headline rate to that surround.

What hidden costs should I include when pricing my services?

The biggest ones are session preparation, post-session admin, client communication, invoicing time, software costs, and rescheduling overhead. Many owners also forget that empty slots and no-shows directly reduce the average rate per available hour.

How often should I review my service pricing?

At least annually — and any time you notice your real hourly rate has drifted below where it needs to be. Many owners go three or four years without a price review, which is roughly the time it takes for the real rate to fall a full tier behind the headline.