Profit Calculator

Profit is the number; margin is the health check

Profit is simply revenue minus costs. Margin — profit as a percentage of revenue — is what tells you whether that profit is healthy or fragile. Two businesses can earn the same profit with very different margins, and the higher-margin one has far more room to absorb a bad month.

Enter your revenue and total costs to see both at once, for a project, a month, or a year.

Count all your costs

For an honest margin, include everything: subcontractors, software, fees, taxes you set aside, and a value for your own time if you have not already paid yourself. Understating costs flatters the margin and hides problems.

Profit is not what is left in the account

The bank balance at month end is not profit. It has not yet paid the tax owed on the money that produced it, it may include a deposit for work not yet delivered, and it may be missing invoices already earned but not paid. Three businesses with identical profit can show wildly different balances.

The habit worth building is separating the three figures and looking at them together: revenue earned in the period, profit after all costs including your own salary, and cash actually available. A freelancer can be profitable and unable to pay rent — that is a collections problem, not a pricing one, and the fix is chasing invoices rather than raising rates. The opposite case, a healthy balance on unprofitable work, is the more dangerous one, because it feels fine right up until it does not.