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If you have experience in design either professionally or simply as an amateur you should consider the possibilities of setting up your home business as a website designer. Web designers typically earn a substantial annual income for their work. This is a home business idea that takes little startup, particularly if you already have certain aspects of the business installed on your computer. To begin a home business in web design you will need a computer, printer, HTML editing software and a graphics editing software. If you already have these in your home then your startup costs will be very minimal.
You will also need a website, preferably designed by you that will showcase your work and provide contact information and rates for your potential clients. You can find a reliable website hosting service for less than $10 per month. This expense as well as any software that you purchase, your monthly internet service fee and advertising expenses can all be deducted from your yearly income taxes so be sure to keep accurate records of all your business expenses to help offset income tax fees each year. If you do not have any work for your online portfolio you can start by informing your website visitors that you designed your own site. You can also design “dummy” sites to give potential clients a feel for your designing talent. Once you have completed a few projects for clients be sure to get permission to list them on your portfolio so that future clients can get a feel for your designs. You will need to work out the figures for use when you are determining your rates. A good rule to follow is by determining your hourly rates. First you will need to determine your overhead costs which will include all your expenses, office equipment, supplies, mortgage or rent, utilities, any insurance or licensing fees and any other expense that you incur as a result of your home business. You will then need to add enough to these annual expenses to see the income from profit that you need. Typically a 10% to 20% profit margin is used. Next you will need to determine how many hours of work you will need to do to reach the yearly amount that includes these calculations. Keep in mind that if you work 40 hours each week many of those hours will not be actual billable hours. If you plan to take two weeks off during the year you can estimate that at working 40 hours per week for 54 weeks your billable hours each year will be 2,000. Considering that at least ¼ of your working hours will be spend contacting clients, billing, advertising and upgrading your skills, these 2,000 hours boils down to about 1,500 hours that you will actually get paid if you are working 54 weeks at 40 hours each week. If you were to estimate that your yearly overhead expenses will total approximately $20,000 and you want to earn a 10% profit, then working 1,500 billable hours yearly for an annual salary of $50,000 would be calculated as: $50,000(salary) + $20,000(overhead expenses) = $70,000 Multiple the total by your 10% profit margin and you get a total of $77,000 Then you simply divide the total amount by your yearly billable hours to determine your hourly rate which in this scenario is $51.33. You can round this down to $50. So, if a design project takes you approximately 4 hours to complete then you can charge your client $200. This calculation of hourly rate will help you to ensure that you are making your desired annual income from your home business.
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