WhatToCharge
Know exactly what to charge for your work
Almost everyone who works for themselves charges too little, and the reason is boring: nobody ever tells them what the work is actually worth. You quote a number, the client says yes too fast, and you spend the next year wondering if you left money on the table.
I got tired of seeing this, so I built WhatToCharge: https://getwhattocharge.com
It is a free pricing calculator plus honest rate guides across 195+ trades, from house cleaning and pressure washing to wedding planning, bookkeeping, and freelance writing. You pick your trade, set your experience and location, and it gives you a defensible price range with the reasoning behind it, not just a number.
A few things I decided early:
- Real ranges, not a single average. An average hides the low end and the premium end, which is exactly the information you need.
- No invented data. I do not publish per-city pricing, because I do not have verified per-city data, and a made-up number is worse than none.
- Free, no signup. The calculator and every guide are open.
Honest status: it is a few days old, almost no traffic yet, zero revenue. The classic SEO slow burn. I am leaning on quality content built around real searches, plus building in public.
Two things I would genuinely love feedback on:
1. If you freelance or run a service business, what would make a pricing tool actually trustworthy to you?
2. What trade or niche should I add next?
Happy to share what works and what flops as it goes.
1 Comment
This is a strong problem because pricing anxiety is already painful. People do not need to be convinced they care about rates. They need to believe the number is defensible enough to use with a real client.
The trust layer matters more than the calculator itself here.
I’d probably avoid making the first promise “pricing calculator.” That sounds useful, but generic. The stronger promise is closer to:
“Find a defensible price range before you quote your next client.”
That ties the tool to the actual moment of pain.
For early traffic, I would not add niches randomly. I’d start with trades where underpricing is common, quote anxiety is high, and people search before sending a client estimate. Wedding planners, cleaners, pressure washers, bookkeepers, copywriters, and local service freelancers all make sense.
The key question is: which niche has enough search demand plus enough emotional pain that they would actually trust and share the guide?
Happy to put a tighter version in writing if useful. The main thing I’d map is the trust angle, first 3 niches to attack, SEO/content structure, and a simple 7-day traffic test.