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What extra revisions do to your effective hourly earnings

A fixed price can stay unchanged while the amount you earn for each hour keeps falling.

Use all delivery hours

Start with the agreed project fee, subtract direct expenses and payment fees, then divide by actual project hours. Include meetings, messages, revisions, testing and handover. Omitting those hours makes the result look healthier than the work actually felt.

Consider a fictional £2,000 project with £100 in direct costs and no payment fees in the example. At 40 hours it returns £47.50 per hour before overhead and tax. Add ten unpaid hours and that falls to £38. The project fee did not change, but your available time did.

Keep accounting labels honest

This is an effective hourly earnings measure, not net profit. Business overhead, taxes, unpaid sales work and outstanding invoices can all affect the money you ultimately retain. An agreed fee is also not the same as cash collected.

Improve the next estimate

Compare estimated and actual hours by work category. If content handling regularly takes longer, change that estimate or tighten the handover requirements. If late feedback causes rework, address the process rather than merely raising every future quote.

Record concessions too. Choosing to include an extra hour for a valued client can be reasonable. You need the record to know it was a deliberate decision.