The Content Rate System

This week, you'll get...

• 🧮 The Real Cost of Your Content

• 🐝 My Friends at Beehiiv said hi (Sponsored)

• 📖 Building a Personal Brand Empire

• 📚️ Free Resources to Scale

🧮 The Real Cost of Your Content (and How to Price It Smarter)

Most creators and entrepreneurs undercharge because they only think about one thing:

“How much would I feel lucky to get paid for this?”

But here’s the real play:

Your content, expertise, and time all have real costs associated with them.

If you don’t know those numbers, you’re holding L’s.

Here’s how to think about it smarter:

1. What’s Your Time Worth?

Your rate should start with a simple foundation: your hourly value.

If you want to earn $100K/year, that’s about $50 an hour.

If you want $200K/year, it’s about $100 an hour.

And remember — you’re not just creating content or freelancing. You’re scripting. Styling. Strategizing. Shooting multiple takes. Editing. Building a pitch deck. Setting up gear. Managing deliverables.

All of that is billable time. Here’s the formula:

(Desired Annual Income) ÷ (Weekly Hours × 52 Weeks) = Your Hourly Rate

Then calculate every project like this:

(Prep Time + Delivery Time + Editing/Admin) × Hourly Rate

• 30% for Taxes

• 20–40% for Licensing/Usage (if they want to boost it)

• Audience Access Fee

Every hour counts. Every deliverable counts. If you’re not tracking the real work going into your content, you’re selling yourself short.

And when you’re setting your number, don’t just think about the labor — think about the leverage.

Anytime a brand, client, or platform wants to post up next to your audience, your platform, your credibility — that’s real value. That’s reach they didn’t have before you.

How much you add depends on the platform, the size and quality of your audience, and the brand lift you’re giving them.

But trust: if they’re pulling up to your table, it’s worth sitting at.

If you’re only charging for the hours you worked, you’re missing half the value you’re bringing.

2. You’re a One-Person Business (most likely)

If you’re a solo creator, freelancer, consultant, or entrepreneur — your whole operation depends on you.

That means no PTO, sick days, employer-sponsored retirement plan, or safety net unless you build it.

It’s hard to future-proof something that’s fully dependent on your health, time, and energy.

So you can’t just charge to get by — you have to charge to live the life you want.

3. A Fast ‘Yes’ & a Quick L

This applies to:

• Brand deals

• Collaborations

• Freelance work

• Speaking gigs

• Consulting projects

If the other side says “yes” immediately — no questions or hesitation — you priced yourself below what they expected to pay.

And if they hit you with “we don’t have the budget,” guess what? That’s not a ‘you’ problem. That’s a ‘them’ problem.

If someone is paying you, it’s because they see a return greater than what they’re spending.

Price accordingly.

4. Your Time Is A Limit (and It’s Not Scalable)

You only get 24 hours a day. Period.

You can’t clone yourself. You can’t manufacture more time.

Manual labor — creating 1:1 for every deal, client, or post — will always cap your earning potential.

So you have to protect your yes.

One of my mentors told me: “Default to no, so that everything you say yes to earns its place.”

When you say yes to something — whether it’s a deal, a speaking gig, or a project — it better earn your yes.

It better align with your goals, your worth, and your real cost of doing business.

Otherwise, you’re just trading your life away for less than it’s worth.

The bottom line?

Start thinking of your content like a business, not a hustle.

If you don’t set clear rates that factor in your time, expertise, and audience value — you’ll always be leaving money on the table.

I’m curious — where are you at right now?

_{(Click the option that fits you best 👇🏾)}

🐝 My Friends at Beehiiv said hi (Sponsored)

This week, at a panel, someone said, “Essence Magazine is now competing with newsletters.”

It hit me — the whole game is shifting!

If you’re only building on social, you’re losing.

Owning your distribution is how you stay ahead.

That’s why I use Beehiiv.

If you keep thinking about it, click below to learn more.

Let’s get serious

What’s the mark of the world’s best, most growth-minded newsletter creators? They’re all on beehiiv.

Why? Our entire platform exists to help serious content creators scale faster. We’re built for those who are ready to take their content and build it into a behemoth. 

It’s why we offer a no-code website builder. It’s why our ad network matches you with global brands like Nike and Netflix. It’s why we never take a dime of your subscription revenue. And it’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ashley Graham trust us to connect with their huge fan bases. 

It’s all to put your hard work in front of more people. So if you’re ready to build, ready to grow, and ready to make the world take notice, beehiiv is ready for you.

Get started for 20% off with code BUILD.

📖 Building a Personal Brand Empire

I also recently sat down with Teachable for a new podcast episode, where I spoke with Gigi Robinson and Janel Abrahami about what it truly takes to build a personal brand, create multiple income streams, and establish a business you actually want to run.

We kept it real — from our first posts to figuring out how to monetize authentically and stay true to our values while scaling up.

If you’re building your brand, chasing that first $1K, or plotting your next move, this one’s a gem.

Also, if you’re in NYC, come out to CONNECT, Teachable’s first-ever in-person conference for creators in partnership with Creator Economy NYC. It’s happening May 10th in Brooklyn, and if you’re a builder, this is the room you want to be in.

🎟 Spots are limited. Grab your ticket here: creatormatch.co/c7cl0i

📚️ Free Resources to Scale

Playbooks for Creatorpreneurs who think like CEOs.

ICYMI — I’ve dropped a few free tools designed to help creators like you grow faster and earn smarter—without the guesswork.

From planning your goals, to landing brand deals, to writing scroll-stopping hooks—there’s something in here for wherever you’re at.