Effective Hourly Rate Calculator

Your time has a price. Calculate your effective hourly rate, then use it to decide which tasks to keep, delegate, or automate.

Most ecommerce founders have no idea what their time is actually worth. They spend hours on RM15/hr tasks while ignoring the RM200/hr work that moves the needle. This calculator shows your real effective hourly rate — then helps you audit where your hours go so you can delegate the cheap work and focus on what only you can do.

Your compensation

Enter what you actually take home — salary plus any profit distributions.

RM
RM

Task Audit

How are you spending your hours? Adjust the defaults to match your actual week, then see which tasks cost more in your time than they would to delegate.

Order fulfillment & shipping

Delegation cost: RM15/hr

Customer service emails

Delegation cost: RM15/hr

Social media posting

Delegation cost: RM20/hr

Bookkeeping & admin

Delegation cost: RM25/hr

Product photography

Delegation cost: RM30/hr

Marketing strategy

Delegation cost: RM50/hr

Product development

Delegation cost: RM40/hr

Sales & partnerships

Core founder work — keep this

Keep
N/A

Frequently Asked Questions

Why use 50 working weeks instead of 52?

We subtract 2 weeks for holidays and time off. If you genuinely work 52 weeks straight, adjust the calculation — but also consider whether that pace is sustainable. The point of this tool is to make your hours more valuable, not to celebrate working more of them.

Should I include profit distributions or just salary?

Include everything you take out of the business — salary, draws, profit distributions, dividends. Your effective hourly rate should reflect your total compensation for the hours you put in, not just the portion labeled "salary" on your payroll.

What if my delegation cost is higher than my hourly rate?

That means the task requires specialist skill worth more than your current rate. This is common with marketing strategy or development work. Keep doing those tasks yourself, or invest in growing your rate first by focusing on higher-value activities.

How do I actually start delegating?

Pick the one task with the biggest gap between your hourly rate and the delegation cost — usually order fulfillment or customer service. Document your process for one week, then hire a part-time VA to take it over. Start with 10 hours/week and scale from there.

More Free Resources

Find out exactly where your store is leaking revenue.

Answer a quick set of multiple-choice questions and we'll pinpoint your biggest revenue leaks — and whether we can help plug them.

Find Your Revenue Leaks

Free · No obligation · 2 minutes