The chart that made Riya raise her rates — and keep every client
How a brand designer used planned vs actual data to quote accurately and charge correctly
Riya had been working as a brand designer for three years, largely on fixed-price projects. She had a general sense she was undercharging but no way to prove it — until she started looking at her planned vs actual chart in Trakby after six weeks of tracking.
"The chart was brutal. Every project was 20-30% over the hours I'd quoted. I wasn't working slowly — I was just not accounting for the invisible work. Client calls, revisions, file prep, sending final assets. That stuff isn't 'work' in your head but it's absolutely billable time."
What changed
Riya added a standard 25% buffer to her project estimates, based on her actual tracked data. She tested it on her next three projects without raising her headline rate. All three came in at or under the estimate. She then raised her rates by 15% with confidence — because she had the data to back the conversation if any client pushed back. None did.
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