Your most-asked start-up questions: answered by founders
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Funding & finance

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How much can I earn?

Once you become a business owner, how much you earn is up to you.

The more you take out of the company, the less you have to reinvest in growing your team / brand.
But, you have some key advantages if you do choose to maximise your earnings:
You own the full value of the fees you bill (e.g. a £30,000 fee =£30,000 of income for your business), and
Earning via dividends (the profits that your company generates) means you pay a lower rate of tax than you would on salary / commissions as an agency employee.
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Both your company and your earnings are still subject to tax, but you can expect to earn more (40-100%+) as a business owner than an agency employee for the same billings.

Example earnings
Billings
Ex. agency salary
Salary + comms @25%
Take-home pay (agency)
Take-home pay (RH founder)
Difference
£200,000.00
£45,000.00
£95,000.00
£64,150.00
£92,741.00
44%
£300,000.00
£45,000.00
£120,000.00
£74,650.00
£137,336.00
84%
£400,000.00
£65,000.00
£165,000.00
£98,972.00
£182,824.00
85%
£500,000.00
£75,000.00
£195,000.00
£114,872.00
£228,311.00
99%
There are no rows in this table
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* Examples shown are based on representative PAYE vs independent business owner tax outcomes. Individual tax scenarios and business performance may vary.

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