Straight answers to the money questions that trip up small businesses.
Every guide comes with a free calculator so you can run the numbers on your own business.
How much should a freelancer charge?
Most freelancers pick a number that sounds reasonable and hope it works. Here's how to set a rate that actually covers your life, …
How to build a financial model for a small business
A good model isn't a wall of numbers — it's a small set of assumptions that flow through your profit, your cash, and your balance …
What is a good LTV:CAC ratio?
Growth is only good if each customer is worth more than they cost to win. LTV:CAC is the one number that tells you whether your ac…
How to price a product for real profit
Most makers price by guessing a number that 'feels right' — and quietly lose money once fees and overhead are counted. Here's how …
Debt snowball vs avalanche: which is better?
Both methods work, and both beat paying random amounts on random cards. The difference is whether you optimize for money saved or …
How to forecast cash flow
Profitable businesses go under all the time — not because they aren't profitable, but because they run out of cash at the wrong mo…
What is a good gross margin?
Gross margin is the share of each sale you keep after the direct cost of delivering it. It's the single best early signal of wheth…
What is a healthy burn rate?
Burn rate is how fast your business spends cash. On its own it's just a number — what makes it healthy or dangerous is how it comp…
What is ARR (annual recurring revenue)?
ARR is the yearly value of your recurring revenue — the predictable, subscription-based income you can count on. It's the headline…
How to calculate contribution margin
Contribution margin is how much each sale contributes toward covering your fixed costs — and, once those are covered, toward profi…
How to value a small business
There's no single 'correct' value for a business — there are methods, and a range. The goal isn't one magic number; it's a defensi…
What is working capital?
Working capital is the money tied up in the day-to-day running of your business. Ignore it and you can grow yourself straight into…
Markup vs margin: what's the difference?
They sound interchangeable, but markup and margin are two different numbers — and mixing them up is one of the most common (and ex…
What is a good ROAS?
You'll see '4:1 is good' repeated all over the internet. It's a decent rule of thumb and a terrible way to run a business. Your re…
How to calculate seller's discretionary earnings (SDE)
When a small, owner-run business sells, the price is almost always a multiple of SDE — not revenue, and not the profit on the tax …
Cash flow vs profit: why profitable businesses go broke
A business can be profitable on paper every single month and still run out of money. The difference between profit and cash is whe…
How to calculate customer acquisition cost (CAC)
CAC is one of the most-quoted numbers in business and one of the most-fudged. Calculate it honestly and it tells you whether growt…
What is DSO (days sales outstanding)?
DSO is a single number that tells you how long, on average, your cash is stuck in customers' hands after a sale. The lower it is, …
Break-even analysis explained
Break-even is the point where a business stops losing money and starts making it. Knowing yours turns pricing, cost, and sales-tar…
How to read a cash flow statement
Of the three core financial statements, the cash flow statement is the one that answers the question that actually keeps owners up…
What is a good profit margin for a small business?
It's one of the most-searched business questions, and the honest answer is 'it depends' — but not in a useless way. Once you know …
MRR vs ARR: what's the difference?
If you run a subscription business, these two acronyms are the heartbeat of your numbers. They measure the same thing at different…
How to improve cash flow in a small business
Improving cash flow isn't about one clever trick. It's about systematically shrinking the gap between money going out and money co…
What is net profit margin?
Of all the margins, net profit margin is the bottom-line one — literally. It's the percentage of every sales dollar that survives …
How to set business KPIs that actually drive decisions
A KPI is only useful if it changes a decision. The goal isn't a wall of numbers — it's a short list of measures that tell you whet…
How to calculate ROI (return on investment)
ROI is the number everyone quotes to justify a decision. Calculated honestly, it tells you whether money spent actually came back …
What is customer lifetime value (CLV)?
CLV reframes a customer from a single sale into a long-term relationship worth a total amount. Knowing it tells you how much you c…
How to price for a target profit margin
Setting a target margin is easy. Hitting it is where most businesses quietly slip up — because they price using markup when they m…
How to write a quote for a client
A good quote does two jobs: it prices the work accurately, and it makes the client feel confident enough to say yes. Getting both …
How to forecast sales from your pipeline
Adding up your open deals gives you a wish, not a forecast. A realistic sales forecast weights every deal by how likely it actuall…
How much do I need to retire?
It sounds like an impossible question, but there's a surprisingly simple starting answer: about 25 times what you spend in a year.…
How to calculate your effective hourly rate
Freelancers and agencies obsess over the fee and ignore the number that actually pays the bills: what you earn per hour once the w…
How to calculate your net worth
Income tells you what flows in; net worth tells you what you've actually built. It's the single number that best captures your fin…
Does a discount actually make money?
Discounts feel like a growth lever, but they're a margin lever in disguise. The volume you need to make a discount pay off is almo…
What is the cash conversion cycle?
Between paying your suppliers and getting paid by customers, your cash sits locked inside the business. The cash conversion cycle …
How much do marketplace fees really cost you?
Selling on a marketplace trades reach for fees. The trouble is those fees stack in ways that are easy to underestimate — until you…
Gross vs net pay: where does the money go?
Almost everyone has felt the gap between the salary they were promised and the amount that actually shows up. That gap is the diff…
What is the Profit First method?
Most businesses treat profit as whatever's left after expenses — which is often nothing. Profit First flips the equation so profit…
How to convert an hourly wage to an annual salary
Comparing an hourly job to a salaried one — or setting a freelance rate — starts with converting between the two. The math is easy…
What is a 13-week cash flow forecast?
When cash is tight, monthly forecasts aren't enough. The 13-week cash flow is the weekly, near-term view that finance teams and tu…
What is CAC payback period?
Of all the growth metrics, CAC payback is the one that most directly answers 'can we afford to grow?' It measures how long a new c…
How big should your emergency fund be?
An emergency fund turns a job loss, car repair, or medical bill from a crisis into an inconvenience. The question isn't whether to…
What is straight-line depreciation?
When a business buys equipment, it doesn't count the whole cost in one year — it spreads it across the years the asset is used. St…
How to pay off credit card debt fast
Credit card debt feels sticky because it's designed to be — high interest and low minimums keep you paying for years. The way out …
What is a good savings rate?
Of all the personal-finance numbers, savings rate is the one that most directly determines when you could stop needing to work. An…
Should you pay off your mortgage early?
Paying a mortgage off early can save a startling amount of interest — but the money could also work elsewhere. The right answer is…
What is cost-plus pricing?
Cost-plus is the most straightforward way to price anything: work out what it costs you, add a markup, and that's your price. It's…
How to price wholesale and retail
If you sell both to stockists and direct to customers, you need two prices — set so everyone in the chain, including you, makes a …
How much is your side hustle really making?
A side hustle bringing in money can still be a bad deal if it eats your evenings for a low hourly return. The way to know is to ru…
What is the Rule of 40?
SaaS founders and investors argue endlessly about growth versus profit. The Rule of 40 settles it into a single, useful benchmark:…
The true cost of owning a car
The sticker price is the number everyone focuses on, and it's one of the least important. What a car actually costs you shows up m…
How much should freelancers set aside for taxes?
The freelance tax trap is simple: no one withholds tax from your pay, so unless you set it aside yourself, the bill arrives when t…
Retainer vs hourly: which is better?
Retainers feel like the grown-up way to freelance — predictable income, committed clients. But an unscoped retainer can pay less p…
How to increase average order value
Every business chases more customers, but the cheapest growth often hides in the customers you already have — getting each order a…
What is your email list worth?
Marketers call the email list their most valuable asset, then rarely put a number on it. Calculating revenue per subscriber turns …
What is a good food cost percentage?
In a restaurant, food cost percentage is the number the whole business turns on. A few points too high across the menu and profit …
How to calculate your utilization rate
Freelancers and agencies obsess over their hourly rate and ignore the number that multiplies it: how many of their hours are actua…
How to reduce cart abandonment
The majority of online shopping carts are abandoned. That sounds like a catastrophe — but each abandoned cart is a customer who wa…
Subscription box profit margins: what you really keep
Subscription boxes are a beloved business model — recurring revenue, loyal customers — but their economics are tighter than they l…
How much house can you actually afford?
The number a lender approves and the number you can comfortably live with are rarely the same. Knowing the difference is the singl…
Which of your services actually make money?
Most service businesses know their total revenue and their biggest clients. Far fewer know which services actually make money once…
Restaurant prime cost: the one number to watch
Ask a seasoned restaurant operator which number they check first, and many will say prime cost. It bundles the two costs a restaur…
How to cost a recipe (and price the dish right)
Menu pricing built on gut feel leaves money on the table or quietly loses it. Costing a recipe properly — down to the serving — is…
Net revenue retention: why 100% is the line that matters
Of all the metrics a subscription business tracks, net revenue retention is the one investors scrutinise hardest — because it reve…
The burn multiple: how efficiently are you really growing?
Growth is easy to buy if you're willing to burn enough cash. The burn multiple exists to answer the harder question underneath: ho…
Safety stock: how much buffer inventory do you really need?
Hold too little and you stock out; hold too much and cash sits on the shelf. Safety stock is the deliberate buffer that balances t…
Cohort retention analysis: the clearest view of whether customers stick
Blended churn can look stable while your business quietly changes underneath it. Cohort analysis is the fix — it holds time consta…
Menu engineering: turning your menu into a profit map
A menu isn't just a list of dishes — it's a set of choices about what your guests order and how much you keep from each. Menu engi…
Roth vs Traditional: it comes down to one question
The Roth-versus-Traditional debate can feel dauntingly technical, but underneath the rules it reduces to a single question about y…
How to set a freelance day rate that actually pays you
The single most common freelance pricing mistake is treating a day rate like a daily salary. It isn't — and the gap between the tw…
Price elasticity of demand: can you raise prices without losing sales?
Every price change is a bet: will the extra margin per sale outweigh the sales you lose? Price elasticity is the number that turns…