Work out what your hour has to cost.

Start with the year, not the hour. Take the weeks you will actually work, after holidays, illness and travel. Multiply by the days you tattoo and the hours you spend tattooing on those days. That is your chair time, and it is the only time a client pays for directly.

Then add up what it costs to sit in that chair. On a shop split, the shop keeps its share of every tattoo before any of it reaches you, so the calculator divides by the share you keep. On a 60/40 split, clients have to pay about 1.67 times what you want to take home. On booth rent, the rent is a fixed cost you pay whether the chair is full or empty, so it is added to your costs instead.

Your minimum rate is everything clients need to pay in a year, divided by the hours they actually turn up for. It is a floor, not a price. Open "Show the working" under the result to see every step with your own numbers.

A two-hour tattoo is rarely two hours of work. There is the consult, the back and forth in your DMs, the drawing and redrawing, the stencil, setup, clean-down, and the aftercare message the next day. None of it is billed by the hour, and all of it comes out of your week.

The calculator shows that in two figures. Your minimum hourly rate does not move, because the money still has to come from chair time. What each hour you work pays does move, and it drops as unpaid hours rise. With the example figures, an hour of work keeps only about 32% of the chair rate.

That gap is worth pricing on purpose. You can charge for design time on large custom work, set a minimum that covers setup and clean-down on small pieces, or raise your hourly rate. Whichever you choose, knowing the size of the gap makes it an easier call.

A no-show costs more than the session. It costs the slot you held for them, the people you turned away for it, and a gap you usually cannot refill at a day's notice. The calculator spreads that cost across every client who does turn up, which is why your minimum rate rises with your no-show rate.

A deposit moves the cost back to the person who caused it. If a client who does not show loses a deposit at least as big as your share of the session, the empty chair costs you nothing and your rate no longer has to carry it. When they do turn up, the deposit comes off the final price, so a reliable client pays nothing extra.

The suggested deposit covers one no-show in full. You might take less on a long session, where a full-cover deposit would put people off. Enter the deposit you take now to see what is left uncovered, and write the rule into your booking policy. To see what taking a deposit costs once card fees are involved, use the tattoo deposit calculator.

It does not do tax. Income tax, sales tax and VAT, and what you can claim against them, depend on where you live. It does not know your local market, so it cannot tell you what artists near you charge. And it assumes a steady week. If you work in bursts around conventions or guest spots, run it for a typical month and treat the answer as a guide.