The short answer is that the hourly rate is a starting place (not a destination), but it is a potentially important one!

Even though scalable offerings have more factors to consider than hourly, service-based ones, you’re still working with many of the same variables from your reality to get there, like your need-based budget, your time, and your overall capacity to set up and deliver the work. Using those as a foundation to find an hourly rate based on need and ability, and then using that rate to price scalable offerings, can help you think through how many sales you’d need to make for an offering without overworking yourself and provide high-low guide rails for your potential price to keep from under- or over-charging.

Taking time upfront to align on what will be required for creation, promotion, and a light understanding of how much you need to sell can keep your work on the project right-sized with less second-guessing.

Building more equitable structures and processes never happens in isolation, and we're so grateful to have amazing anticapitalist and anti-oppression educators and peers to look to along the way and learn from. There are many educational sources, but two great ones to start with related to rate-setting and personal enoughness include FREELY: An Anti-Capitalist Guide to Pricing Your Work by Bear Hebert and How Much Money is Enough? by Nic Antoinette. Learn more about economic justice and financial accessibility in our resource hub, find more educators and folks to work with in our community referral network, and for more from us, check in with our commitment to financial accessibility and transparency.