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agency rate card builder

Agency rate card builder

Stop pulling rates out of the air. Enter the fully-loaded annual cost for each role, the gross margin you want to hit, and your team's realistic utilization - this builds a defensible rate card you can actually publish.

junior rate$92/hr
mid rate$145/hr
senior rate$214/hr
blended rate$150/hr
Healthy utilization range for delivery roles.
what to do
  • Blended rate across the three roles: $150/hr. Use this when scoping mixed-team retainers.
Publish your rate card - then bill against it without spreadsheets.
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the method

How the rates are built

billable hours = 2080 × utilization%
cost / billable hour = annual cost ÷ billable hours
billable rate = cost ÷ (1 - target margin%)

Three things drive a defensible rate: your true cost (the fully-loaded number, not just salary - usually salary × 1.3-1.5), your target margin, and the utilization you can sustain. A junior at $60k fully loaded, billing 70% of 2080 hours, hits ~$92/hr at 55% gross margin. Senior at $140k, same setup, $214/hr. The number you publish should be these or higher, not lower.

how to use it

Three inputs, a whole card

  1. Enter the fully-loaded annual cost for each role (junior, mid, senior).
  2. Set your target gross margin - 50-55% is healthy for delivery work.
  3. Set realistic billable utilization - 65-80% for delivery roles is sustainable.
  4. Read the rate per role plus the blended rate, with advice tailored to your numbers.
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Put this calculator on your site

Free to embed. Paste this snippet anywhere your audience plans pricing - it's self-contained, updates live, auto-fits any layout, and links back to the full tool.

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<p style="font:14px/1.5 sans-serif;margin:8px 0 0">Free <a href="https://forge.so/calculators/rate-card-builder">agency rate card builder</a> by Forge</p>
<script>(function(){window.addEventListener("message",function(e){if(!e.data||e.data.type!=="forge-resize")return;var f=document.querySelectorAll("iframe[data-forge-calc]");for(var i=0;i<f.length;i++){if(f[i].contentWindow===e.source)f[i].style.height=e.data.height+"px"}})})();</script>
keep reading

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questions

Frequently asked questions

What is fully-loaded cost?

The total cost of having someone on the team, not just their salary - usually salary × 1.3-1.5 once you add payroll taxes, benefits, software, and the non-billable time they take. Using salary alone makes margins look better than they are.

What's a healthy billable utilization to plan against?

65-80% for delivery roles is sustainable. Above 85% is burnout-and-overtime territory; below 60% means the rates needed climb to compensate. 70% is a sensible default.

What target margin should I use?

50-55% gross margin is a healthy target for services agencies. Lower than that leaves little room for overhead and profit; much higher (70%+) is aggressive and may be hard to land outside premium positioning.

Should I publish my rate card?

Increasingly yes - productized agencies publish, traditional ones don't. A published card qualifies buyers and shortens sales cycles. A working internal version is the minimum either way.

How is this different from the pricing calculator?

The pricing calculator runs the maths on a single engagement (your fee vs delivery cost). The rate card builder works backwards: cost + margin + utilization → the hourly rate you should charge per role. Use this to build the card; use the pricing calculator to test each quote against it.

build. publish. prove.

Build a card you can defend - then bill against it.

Forge builds branded time-tracking and client portals for your agency - no code, no servers, no setup.

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