Business Simulator

Rate Card

You are the entire company.

Four years solo, $85 an hour, booked through March, and $9,500 in the bank to show for it.

Your inventory is hours. It is manufactured every morning, it expires every night, and there are only so many of them no matter how the year goes. Sales, proposals, invoicing and chasing come off the top before you can sell a single one, so the rate on your card and the rate you actually earn have never once been the same number. Your costs don’t shrink when the phone stops either: insurance, software and your household bill the same amount in a dead month as in a full one. Three levers: what you charge, how many hours you’ll give, and whether any of your revenue survives a week in bed.

Twelve months, one decision each. Every year plays out differently: different situations knock, with different numbers attached. But nothing here is luck: once a situation is on screen, every consequence follows from the numbers shown and the state you built. Raises pay later. Overwork bills later. The tax on money you already spent arrives on a schedule that doesn’t care. If December is thin, the decision that made it thin was probably taken in February, and it probably felt like being busy.