Unit-economics for creators

Know your true rate, margin, and VAT before you quote

Free deterministic calculators for freelancers, indie creators, and solopreneurs. Set a defensible day-rate, price digital products with real margin, check whether VAT MOSS applies to your EU sales, and plan meetings across timezones without coffee-spreadsheet math. Each tool answers one question with sourced inputs. No login, no upsell.

4 tools available

Tools

Each tool below is a standalone single-purpose deployment. Tap a tile to open it.

No tools have been registered yet. Populate `tools_registry` in `operator-overrides.yaml`.

The umbrella in one read

What unit economics means for a one-person creator business, and how these tools fit together.

The umbrella in one read

Unit economics is the math behind every quote, every product price, every meeting you take. For a one-person creator business — freelance designer, indie developer, course author, newsletter operator — the numbers are not what a finance team would compute. They are what you compute on the back of a napkin, and the napkin is often wrong. A day-rate that feels high gives you 11 paid months and a tax surprise. A digital-product price that looks healthy gives you 6% take-home after platform fees, refunds, and VAT. A meeting "at 3pm" lands at 6am for the other side and you lose the deal.

This umbrella bundles the four most common pieces of creator unit-math into one decision flow. Each tool answers one question with sourced inputs (EU VAT MOSS thresholds, Gumroad/Stripe fee schedules, IANA timezone database, public freelance benchmark surveys). No login, no marketing copy, no upsell to a "creator OS" that wants $40/month.

What this umbrella covers

Day-rate math (day-rate.creator-unit-math.com). The defensible day-rate is not "what competitors charge". It is your fixed costs (rent, software, hardware amortization, health insurance) plus your target take-home, divided by your billable days — and "billable days" is rarely more than 150 out of 365 once you subtract sales, admin, sick, holiday, and training. A defensible rate puts your number on a single page with the math visible to the client, which beats anchoring against an opaque "consultant tier" every time.

Margin pricing for digital products (margin.creator-unit-math.com). A €29 ebook on Gumroad does not pay you €29. It pays you €29 minus VAT (handled by Gumroad as merchant of record for EU sales, fine), minus Gumroad's 10% + 30¢ fee, minus the refund rate (typically 3-8% for digital products), minus your processing/PayPal portion if the buyer used it. Your real take is closer to €23. Price the margin you want, not the sticker.

VAT MOSS for EU digital sales (vat-moss.creator-unit-math.com). If you sell digital goods to EU consumers and you are an EU seller, you owe VAT at the buyer's rate, not yours — unless you are under the €10,000/year cross-border threshold, in which case you can charge your home rate. If you are non-EU, you owe VAT from the first sale and can register for the non-Union OSS scheme via one EU member state to file one return per quarter. Both regimes have exceptions for B2B sales (reverse charge) and for sales through "deemed-supplier" platforms (Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy) which handle VAT for you. Knowing which regime applies determines whether you need to register, file, or just keep records.

Timezone planning (timezone.creator-unit-math.com). A Tuesday "3pm meeting" is six different times across the EU, US east, US west, UK, India, and Japan, and four of them are unworkable. A jet-lag-aware planner shows you the overlap windows, marks the "do not propose" hours (anything before 7am or after 9pm for either side), and gives you a copy-paste line in the recipient's local time. Saves the 4-email loop.

Who it serves

EU and US-based freelance designers, developers, copywriters, consultants, course authors, newsletter operators, podcast producers, and anyone who quotes a project and ships a digital good as a one-person business. Not for: agencies with billable employees (different unit economics), VC-backed startups (different funding model), or pure-affiliate creators with no direct sales (different tax treatment).

How the tools fit together

Each tool is independently usable, but the canonical decision flow for a new client engagement is: set day-rate (so you know what 8 hours of work costs you) → check VAT MOSS applicability (so you quote tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive correctly) → plan the kickoff meeting across timezones → ship the digital deliverable and price its margin so the recurring revenue stream is positive. The four tools cover the four moments where unit-math beats vibes.

No tool here charges a subscription. Each calculator is a one-question answer. Where a deeper roadmap is useful — defending your day-rate to a procurement team, registering for non-Union OSS in Ireland, picking between Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy on a per-product basis — the companion articles below go deeper. The free calculator is sufficient for the operational decision.

Companion articles

Three deeper reads anchored to the pillar.

Setting a defensible day-rate — fixed costs, billable days, target take-home

Spoke 1

Setting a defensible day-rate — fixed costs, billable days, target take-home

Why this matters

"What should I charge?" is the wrong question. The right question is: "What do I need to earn per billable day so that 150 billable days a year cover my fixed costs and target take-home?" The arithmetic answers it deterministically. The "feel" of a day-rate (matching what a friend charges, undercutting an agency) is the most expensive part of freelance pricing.

How to handle it

Start with annual fixed costs: rent or coworking, software (Adobe, Figma, Notion, GitHub, hosting), hardware amortization (laptop / monitor / camera, 3-year straight-line), professional services (accountant, lawyer), health insurance, retirement contribution, business insurance, and any tooling subscriptions. For a typical EU-based solo creator this lands between €18,000 and €36,000.

Add target take-home: the cash you want to spend on rent + food + savings, before income tax. For a comfortable EU mid-tier this is €40,000-€70,000 net; gross-up by your marginal income tax band and social-security contribution (typically 35-45% combined) to get the pre-tax target. €70,000 net → roughly €110,000-€130,000 gross.

Now estimate billable days. Out of 365: subtract 104 weekends, 25 holiday, 10 public holidays, 15 sick / personal, 30 admin / sales / training, 30 networking / marketing / writing. That leaves around 150 billable days. Realistic, not aspirational.

Day-rate = (fixed_costs + target_gross) / billable_days. A €25,000 fixed-cost solo aiming for €120,000 gross at 150 billable days = €967/day, round up to €1000/day. Defensible: each input is a line item the client can see if they ask.

What changes the rate

Specialization (rare skill, premium positioning) adds 20-50%. Sector premium (regulated, high-stakes — fintech, healthcare, legal) adds 20-40%. Repeat-client discount (50%+ of revenue from one client) subtracts 10-20% on that client's projects in exchange for predictability. Junior-positioning subtracts 30% but signals "trainable" and pulls volume.

Related tools

The day-rate calculator drives the inputs into the margin pricing tool (when you sell digital products, the day-rate sets your opportunity cost of one hour spent on a course vs one billable hour) and into the VAT MOSS check (because day-rate is a B2B service, not a digital good — different VAT treatment).

Margin math for digital products — Gumroad/Stripe fees, refunds, real take

Spoke 2

Margin math for digital products — Gumroad/Stripe fees, refunds, real take

Why this matters

A €29 sticker price on a Gumroad ebook lands closer to €23 in your bank account after fees, VAT (if Gumroad acts as merchant of record), refunds, and payment-method weighting. Price the take, not the sticker. Pricing the sticker without modeling the deductions is how creators end up earning €4/hour on a "successful" launch.

How to handle it

Start with sticker price: what the buyer pays at checkout (gross, tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive depending on platform). Subtract the platform fee. Gumroad charges 10% + 30¢ per transaction at launch; Lemon Squeezy charges 5% + 50¢ + payment fees (~3%); Stripe direct is 1.5%-2.9% + 30¢ depending on region. The platform fee is a fixed slice and a per-transaction floor — the floor dominates for low-priced products (a €5 download takes a 16% effective hit just from the €0.30 floor).

Subtract refunds. Digital products typically refund at 3-8% depending on category (template downloads ~3%, courses ~6%, productivity tools ~8%). The refund is total: you lose the platform fee on the original transaction and the refund-processing cost (some platforms refund the fee, some don't — check). Model it as a percentage haircut on revenue.

Subtract VAT if you handle it yourself. For non-deemed-supplier platforms (Stripe direct, Paddle pre-2020) you collect VAT and remit it; the VAT is not yours. For deemed-supplier platforms (Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle MoR, Apple, Google) the platform collects and remits — your revenue is already net of VAT, but reported gross by the platform for your records. Read the payout statement closely.

Subtract payment processing weighting if it's not bundled with the platform fee. Stripe / PayPal / Apple Pay / Google Pay / SEPA all have different processing rates; the platform reports an effective average.

The remaining number is your net take per unit. Multiply by expected volume to get launch revenue. If the net take is below your day-rate divided by hours-spent-creating-the-product, you have a margin problem the launch volume alone won't fix.

Worked example

€29 course on Gumroad, 100 sales, EU buyer mix (Gumroad handles VAT). Sticker = €29 × 100 = €2900. Gumroad fee = 10% + €0.30 × 100 = €290 + €30 = €320. Refunds = 6% = €174 lost revenue + ~€20 unrecovered fees = €194. Net take = €2900 - €320 - €194 = €2386. Per unit = €23.86. If the course took 80 hours to make, that's €29.83/hour — well below a €1000/day rate (€125/hour at 8h). Decision: price at €49, or build a recurring product on top.

Related tools

Margin pricing feeds the day-rate calculator (opportunity-cost of one hour on a launch vs one billable hour) and the VAT MOSS check (whether your platform is deemed-supplier changes the VAT line in this calculation).

VAT MOSS for EU digital sales — when it applies, when it doesn't

Spoke 3

VAT MOSS for EU digital sales — when it applies, when it doesn't

Why this matters

Selling a €15 PDF to a German consumer from your one-person Spanish business triggers a VAT obligation at the German rate (19%), not the Spanish rate. This rule applies from the first sale for non-EU sellers, and above €10,000/year cross-border revenue for EU sellers. Knowing which side of the threshold you sit on determines whether you file quarterly OSS returns or just keep records.

The three regimes

Union OSS (One-Stop Shop) — for EU-established sellers crossing the €10,000/year cross-border threshold of digital sales to EU consumers. Register in your home member state, file one quarterly return that splits revenue by destination country, pay one consolidated VAT bill. The home tax authority remits to the other member states. Before the threshold you can keep charging your home-country rate to all EU consumers.

Non-Union OSS — for non-EU sellers (UK, US, anywhere outside the EU-27) selling digital goods to EU consumers. Applies from the first sale; no threshold. Register in one EU member state of your choice (Ireland is common for English-language filings), file quarterly, remit consolidated.

Deemed-supplier platforms — Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle MoR, Apple App Store, Google Play, Steam, and similar handle VAT for you. The platform is the merchant of record; you report platform-payouts as service income, not as B2C digital sales. No OSS registration needed for sales through these platforms. You still need OSS for any direct Stripe / direct PayPal sales above the threshold.

Edge cases

B2B sales (reverse charge). If the buyer provides a valid VAT number (verifiable via VIES), the sale is reverse-charged: you invoice VAT-exclusive with a "reverse charge applies" note, buyer self-accounts. No OSS line item for these. Validate the VAT number at sale time; an invalid number forces you to charge consumer VAT.

Mixed catalog. If you sell digital goods and physical goods, the digital sales hit the OSS digital-services rules; the physical goods hit the OSS distance-sales rules (different thresholds, different schemes since July 2021). Don't mix them in one calculation.

UK after Brexit. UK sellers are non-EU for OSS purposes; UK consumer sales below £85,000 may also trigger UK VAT registration separately. EU sellers to UK consumers face UK VAT from the first sale (no threshold) via the UK's own simplified VAT regime for low-value imports.

Decision flow

  1. Are you selling through a deemed-supplier platform (Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, etc.)? If yes → platform handles VAT, you do nothing on OSS. Done.
  2. Are you EU-established? If yes → are you above €10,000/year cross-border digital revenue? If no → charge home-country rate. If yes → register Union OSS.
  3. Are you non-EU? → register Non-Union OSS from the first sale, OR use a deemed-supplier platform to outsource the obligation.
  4. B2B buyer with valid VAT number → reverse-charge, invoice VAT-exclusive.

Related tools

The VAT MOSS check feeds into the margin pricing tool (a deemed-supplier platform changes the VAT line in your margin calculation) and indirectly into the day-rate calculator (B2B services use reverse-charge VAT, not OSS — different invoicing rules).