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

icon picker
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.
⁠
average-2

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
0
Billings
Ex. agency salary
Salary + comms @25%
Take-home pay (agency)
Take-home pay (RH founder)
Difference
1
£200,000.00
£45,000.00
£95,000.00
£64,150.00
£92,741.00
44%
2
£300,000.00
£45,000.00
£120,000.00
£74,650.00
£137,336.00
84%
3
£400,000.00
£65,000.00
£165,000.00
£98,972.00
£182,824.00
85%
4
£500,000.00
£75,000.00
£195,000.00
£114,872.00
£228,311.00
99%
There are no rows in this table
⁠
* Examples shown are based on representative PAYE vs independent business owner tax outcomes. Individual tax scenarios and business performance may vary.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.