Boost Your Agency’s Earnings: Gryzzly Unveils Free Daily Rate Calculator!

Setting a daily rate often relies heavily on estimation. One might consider what peers charge, add a safety margin, and adjust according to quotes. Online simulators only partially help, as they mostly target independents and calculate based on a desired salary. The scenario of organizations billing for multiple profiles based on time spent is rarely addressed. Yet, this issue is particularly relevant in the service industry, where time is the only sellable resource. Gryzzly, a company offering solutions for time tracking and profitability, provides a free calculator tailored for these organizations.

Try the TJM Calculator

A TJM is Calculated from Costs, Not Market Rates

The logic of the calculator begins with the actual cost of a workday. This cost includes the employee’s loaded salary, their share of the company’s fixed expenses, and the number of days that can actually be billed after accounting for holidays, public holidays, and unbilled time.

The latter variable often skews homemade calculations. An employee is never billable for every day they work. Internal meetings, pre-sales activities, training, recruiting, and administrative tasks all naturally reduce the salable volume. Underestimating this portion leads to setting a rate that looks good on paper but fails to cover unbilled times. A similar problem applies to overhead costs, which are rarely allocated per employee even though they affect each billable day.

The calculator applies this logic on a company-wide scale, not just per individual. It starts with the workforce, annual fixed expenses, and a target net margin, then breaks down the calculation by position. Variables that affect the outcome remain adjustable: reference year, daily working hours, employer’s charge rates, statutory holidays. From this, the model deduces an average daily cost, an hourly cost, and then targeted daily and hourly rates.

A Model to Fill or an Online Calculator

There are two versions of this resource. The first is a model to download and populate with one’s data, available in Notion or as an Excel or Google Sheets file. The second is an online calculator that recalculates results as data is entered and offers to send a summary via email. A secondary field allows sharing this summary with a partner or accountant without adding their email to the publisher’s contact database.

The value of this exercise lies not so much in the figures it produces as in the discrepancies it reveals. Comparing the target rate with actual rates charged provides a baseline below which a job is sold at a loss, regardless of the billing method. Gryzzly notes that the model is also applicable to flat-rate services, using the rate as a benchmark to estimate the sellable workload.

The differences between the target rate and current rates are often explained by overlooked items at the time of calculation: charges, overhead costs, tools, subcontracting, management, unbilled time. Gryzzly also accompanies the model with three points of caution to verify before validating a result. The realism of the number of billable days tops the list, as just a few more or fewer days can significantly shift the outcome.

TJM Calculation Does Not Indicate Actual Profitability

A coherent daily rate is based on assumptions of time and costs. These are verified project by project, which is where Gryzzly aligns its services. The solution compares planned to actual, tracking time spent by each employee, budget used, and margin realized at close.

Time recording is facilitated through a chatbot integrated into Slack or Microsoft Teams, or through an interface that converts calendar events into time entries. Dashboards then display budget progress project by project and alert to any overruns before they impact the margin.

The calculator is usable on its own, without a subscription. It generates a numerical benchmark in minutes, using data that every organization already has at its disposal.

Explore the TJM Calculator