Last year, I attended a workshop that asked a surprisingly simple question that stuck with me long after it ended: how many clients do you need per month to meet your financial needs? Not how busy you are, not how booked out your calendar looks, but a clear number that tells you whether your pricing is actually working for your business and your life.
I want to break this down a bit further, because there are a few things you need to look at when asking yourself this question. First, you need to know your average income per client. I’ll explain this from the perspective of tattooing, since that’s my primary field, but the concept applies to any creative business. For this example, let’s assume each client brings in $500 and that you’re only able to serve one client per day. You can adjust these numbers to fit your own industry and capacity.
Before you look at how many clients you need, it’s essential to calculate your full monthly financial requirement (ie. how much money you need every month). This includes every business expense, what you need to pay yourself, and any additional amounts for taxes, GST remittances, savings, debt repayment or rainy-day funds. Once you have this number, you have the absolute minimum amount your business must bring in each month in order to sustain your life. If you make more than this, that’s great, but this is the non-negotiable baseline. Every industry has slower and busier seasons, which is why it’s still important to look at this month over month, but this gives you a clear way to assess whether your business is sustainable within a 30-day period.
Let’s say your total monthly income requirement is $5,000. If each client brings in an average of $500, that means you need ten clients per month. That’s it. No hoping, no guessing, and no letting a couple of good days convince you that everything is fine. These numbers show you exactly what needs to happen every single month for your business to work. Some days you might tattoo one client at $500, and other days you might tattoo two clients at $250 each, but you’re still reaching the same daily target.
One simple way to track this is by recording every sale in a spreadsheet and highlighting each client day that meets the $500 threshold. At the end of the month, you can quickly see whether you’ve reached your ten highlighted days or not (plus is it just me, or do all creatives love colour coded things?!). This approach keeps the process straightforward and removes emotion from the equation, making it easier to see what’s actually happening in your business.
Of course, there’s flexibility built into this. You might work an extra day one week, or work a full five-day week with lower daily totals that still add up to what you need. You can also work backwards and calculate how much money you need to make each day based on your availability. The goal isn’t to create rigid rules for yourself, but to give yourself clear information so you can make intentional decisions.
I know this kind of tracking isn’t what most artists or creatives want to spend their time doing, but it matters. It’s far more beneficial to look at this month over month or quarter over quarter than to realize at the end of a year that your business hasn’t been making enough the entire time. It’s always better to know at the end of a month or a quarter than after a full year of underpricing your work.
If the numbers don’t work, you have options. You can raise your prices, change your availability, reduce expenses, or adjust what you offer. Clarity gives you choices, while avoiding the numbers removes them entirely. It’s about having the information to make informed decisions about your future. When you know your numbers, you stop second-guessing yourself and start making decisions like a business owner.
With love,
Erin
