Plan for Profit in your Web Design Business (2025)
With a new year comes new goals, including financial business goals. Us freelancers and business owners don’t have a set income, so we need to plan our revenue and expenses in advance to meet our goals. Even if you don’t have projects booked yet, you can still easily plan for the profit you want in the new year, 12 months ahead.
I’ve been there, January 1st where I set an earnings goal for my business for the new year. And every few months I check in with where I’m at, but I truly have no idea if I’ll actually make that goal until December 31st. I might even sneak a project in end of December just to earn a bit more (I have a nightmare "working over Christmas" story exactly because of this…). Or there’s the fact that I focus on how much I earn, without entirely considering how much I’ve spent on the business.
Thankfully I now have a tool that helps me figure out what it will actually take to meet my goals, and if I’ll get there.
Now I start the year and every quarter by filling out and reviewing a profit planning tool. I use My Profit Planner which is a plug and play template to help you plan all your money goals faster. It’s created by CPAs (Chartered Professional Accountants) who understand the needs of freelancers and solopreneurs. I’ve been using My Profit Planner to set my profit goals, plan my revenue and plan my expenses for the year. And it immediately tells me if I can actually reach these goals from the information I’ve given it. If not, well then I know I need to restrategize my income or spending.
It only takes an hour to fill out the first time, but sets you up for 12 months of success. Here’s how it works…
How to Use a Profit Planner
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Goal Setting:
Input your business revenue goals, and what you want to pay yourself every month goals. Be realistic, knowing that slow growth is more sustainable than fast growth. I personally look at the previous year’s numbers and try to increase revenue goals by about 20% every year and pay myself at least 10% more. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s my goal.
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Plan Revenue Streams:
I plan my revenue by adding my regular sources of income, and income that’s variable by month. Regular income includes monthly income from retainer clients, and an average of our digital template sales. Variable income streams include for example getting booked for 2 VIP days per month, and selling one $10K website package every 2 months. I can easily add these by adding the revenue, quantity and checking off the frequency or which months these will occur in.
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Input Expenses:
I list my expenses by inputting the amount paid and on what payment schedules I have for each of them. Most of my software expenses are monthly or annually so those are easy to input. Then I also input some things that I’ve expensed in the past but aren’t regular, so I’ll estimate for example $1000 in office supplies per year, $10,000 for outsourcing, and $5000 for education. I’m not 100% sure about some of these expenses but I’d rather overestimate than underestimate.
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Plan for taxes, debt and savings:
Input what you need to plan to pay towards debt payments, what needs to be set aside as business savings (in case you need an emergency laptop or have a client dry spell!), and plan for your taxes. Having a clear estimate of your actual profit rather than revenue is going to help a lot to estimate your taxes for the year.
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Assess the projections:
Once I fill in this information, the spreadsheet immediately shows me annual and monthly projections in a chart. It clearly states if I’ll meet my profit goals from step 1 based on the numbers I’ve inputted. If I’m not projected to reach my goal, then I know I need to change something.
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Explore different scenarios:
If I’m not projected to meet my goal, I need to explore different scenarios:- Earn more: I can earn more by taking on more clients, perhaps by adjusting my offers to be more appealing or saying yes to more projects.
- Raise prices: You're likely due for a raise. Evaluate your pricing and consider bumping prices up!
- Lower expenses: Which of the expenses are necessary and which are nice to have? Can expenses be reduced at all? Which expenses are investments in the business and should be prioritized?
- Change the goal: Maybe this goal is attainable 2 years down the line, but it will take some more building to get there.
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Commit to the goal:
Now that you can see exactly how many projects you need to book for the year to meet your goal, do the work to make those sales. Market yourself, improve your skills, gather testimonials, and share your work consistently. Don’t wait for work to magically fall into your lap. There is always something you can do to draw clients in and start conversations about working together.
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Review quarterly:
Review the Planner quarterly to track your progress. Think of the Planner as setting checkpoints along the way to keep your on track towards your goal.
My Profit Planner is just the most straight-forward no-fluff profit planning tool ever, because it tells you plain and simple: will you or won’t you make your goal based on the numbers put in? I think it’s hard to know exactly how much we’re earning and spending over the year when we’re wrapped up in projects and marketing ourselves. And of course we don’t know what bookings we’ll actually get for the year, but you know what you need to work towards to make the goal.
I’ve felt that this planning has become more crucial our business has grown. As we began to work with contractors regularly, we had to be a lot more conscious of how much profit we were making, since others relied on us for payment, and we wanted to continue to pay ourselves for our work.
While January 1st is a nice time to start using the Planner, you can actually start using it at any month of the year. If you want to get a better grasp on the numbers in your business, then you can pick up My Profit Planner for only about $25 USD. Plus, you can save 10% with code LUNA10 at checkout (this is an affiliate link but we’ve purchased it ourselves!).
How good would it feel knowing how much you'll make this year 12 months ahead, and having check points along to way to keep you on track? Take a peek at it here:
Hana Drdla
