Side Hustle Reality Sheet
Revenue over hours flatters. Count the fees, the costs, the tax and every hour.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/side-hustle-hourly-profit-calculator
The arithmetic
- REAL HOURLY
- (revenue − fees − costs) x (1 − tax) ÷ ALL hours
- The flattering figure
- revenue ÷ hours
- Defaults: looks like
- $26.67 an hour
- Defaults: actually
- $11.75 an hour
- Order things come off
- platform fee · costs · tax · then ÷ hours
- ⚠ Count EVERY hour
- sourcing, listing, messaging, packing, driving
- ⚠ Tax is owed
- whether or not you set it aside
- ⚠ One month proves nothing
- run it three times before judging
- ⚠ Not counted
- your kit, your car, your space, your rest
Month by month
| Month | Revenue | Costs | Hours | Real $/h | vs wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This month
- Hustle
- Month
- Revenue
- Platform fee %
- Direct costs
- PROFIT BEFORE TAX
- Tax %
- TAX OWED
- KEPT
- Hours — making or doing the work
- Hours — admin and travel
- TOTAL HOURS
- REAL HOURLY
- Looks like
- Wage compared against
- Why I am doing this
Getting an honest figure
- Every hour logged, including admin, messaging and driving
- Platform fees taken from revenue, not forgotten
- Direct costs itemised rather than remembered
- Tax set aside as it is earned, not owed later
- Compared against what the same hours could earn elsewhere
- Run for three months before concluding anything
- Outlier months marked rather than averaged away
- Reason for doing it stated honestly — money is not the only valid one
- Registration and deductibility checked with a qualified adviser
The unpaid hours decide it
Sourcing, photographing, listing, messaging, packing, posting, bookkeeping, driving. None of it feels like the job and all of it is time the hustle consumed. Counting only the hours you were actively producing is the commonest way people overestimate what they earn — and the more admin-heavy the hustle, the further out the estimate.
Paying badly is not the same as not worth doing
Building a skill, testing a market, enjoying it, or growing something that will pay at scale are all good reasons to run something that pays poorly per hour. Continuing because you believe it pays more than it does is not. The comparison exists to make the choice a real one — and if the answer is 'I am doing this to learn', that changes what you should be optimising.