Maya Ellison writes about the money side of freelancing — rates, taxes, and getting paid. She spent six years in agency finance ops before going independent, and builds the calculators she wishes she'd had.
Solo Money Tools exists because the money side of freelancing is taught badly. Pricing advice is vague, tax advice arrives too late, and most calculators online are buried in ad clutter or demand your email.
Every tool on this site is free, requires no sign-up, and runs entirely in your browser. Your numbers are never sent anywhere — there's no server, no analytics on your inputs, nothing to leak. Just the arithmetic you need, explained so you can trust it. Bloggers and communities can embed any calculator on their own sites.
What we cover
The site launched with four core calculators: the hourly rate calculator, the salary⇄contract converter, the tax set-aside calculator, and the day-rate converter. More tools are on the way, including rate comparisons by country, gig-economy earnings calculators, and late-payment interest tools.
Editorial standards
Every calculator page explains its formula openly. Where rules differ by country — taxes especially — we say so instead of pretending one answer fits everyone. Nothing on this site is financial or tax advice; see our disclaimer.
How each page is checked
Every calculator ships with a worked example that is recomputed by hand before publication — the same inputs run through the formula independently of the page's code, so a scripting slip cannot silently corrupt the answer. If the hand check and the calculator disagree, the page does not ship until they match.
Every guide cites primary sources rather than secondhand summaries: the IRS for US federal tax rules, and GOV.UK and HMRC for UK rules. When a rule differs between countries — self-employment tax versus National Insurance, for example — the page says which country it applies to instead of pretending one answer fits everyone.
Figures are re-checked against 2026 limits, including the Social Security wage base ($184,500), solo 401(k) limits ($24,500 in employee contributions, $72,000 total), the IRS standard mileage rate (76 cents per mile), and the qualified business income deduction thresholds ($201,750 for single filers, $403,500 joint). Pages carry Updated dates, and tax figures are refreshed when the IRS announces changes.
About the author
Maya Ellison is a pen name. Behind it is a writer who spent six years in agency finance operations — invoicing, chasing late payments, reconciling contractor payroll — before going independent. She writes from that practitioner experience: these are the calculators she wishes she had. She is not a licensed tax or financial professional, and makes no claim to CPA, Enrolled Agent, or any other credential. Nothing here is a substitute for advice about your own situation.
Primary sources we cite
Every tax figure on this site traces to one of these primary sources — not to other blogs. When an agency revises a figure, the affected pages are updated and their Updated dates change:
- IRS self-employment tax rules — the 15.3% rate, the $400 threshold, the 92.35% base
- IRS estimated taxes — quarterly deadlines, the $1,000 threshold, safe harbors
- IRS standard mileage rates — the current cents-per-mile figure
- IRS one-participant 401(k) plans — Solo 401(k) contribution limits
- GOV.UK working for yourself — UK self-employment registration and record-keeping
- GOV.UK National Insurance rates — Class 2 and Class 4 figures
- Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook — occupation pay benchmarks
- SBA business-plan guide — break-even and cash-flow planning
What this site is — and is not
This site is general financial education for freelancers: worked examples, open formulas, and plain-English explanations of the rules that affect independent workers. It is not tax advice, accounting, or legal advice. Tax rules depend on your country, income, and circumstances — for decisions that affect what you file or pay, consult a qualified CPA, Enrolled Agent, or equivalent professional in your jurisdiction.