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There's a moment every January when the timeline for creators like us splits in two. Half of us are manifesting "six figures, dream clients, soft life." The other half is quietly opening their banking apps and subscription lists like a horror game.
This piece is for the second group: the ones who want the magic but are troubled by the math and by how to bring order to the chaos of their own making. The ones who are tired of treating their creative career like a vibes‑only experiment and are ready to build a system that actually holds them.
2026 doesn't need another vision board from you. It requires a clearer definition on the minimum you're not willing to fall below in energy, creativity, and money.
Let's build that together!
Every year, we set some version of the same goals:
"Post consistently."
"Grow my audience."
"Charge more."
And then the year happens. Algorithms change, opportunities pop up at 2 am, we say yes to "quick favors" for friends, and suddenly it's December again, and we're wondering where our time (and money) went.
After many years as a creator, I figured out that the problem isn't the goals themselves but the type of goals we set for ourselves. They are all "floating." They're not attached to anything concrete; no numbers, no containers, no boundaries; just good intentions.
For 2026, I think it is time to get to the core of the problem in a few easy steps, for myself and maybe for you as well. Not a new personality, just a new way your creative life becomes more efficient and operational.
When scrolling through TikTok the other day, I realized that most of us only set creative or financial goals. A more honest 2026 imo needs three buckets that talk to each other:
Ask yourself:
How much time do you realistically have for work (excluding admin hours)?
How many evenings or weekends should actually be off‑limits?
What do rest and play look like for you (yes, gaming obviously counts)?
Examples could include: one entirely off-screen day per week, a game you play for pure joy, a day you spent with your kid, or rules that allow meetings only to start at 10 am. The rules are yours to set, but human energy has its limits, and only driving close to the limit doesn't make us better or more successful creators! The sooner we admit that these are not "treats you earn when you're productive," but they are system requirements, the more efficient we will become.
Ask yourself:
What do you want to get better at?
What do you want to publish or release with the highest priority?
Who do you want to collaborate with?
Examples could include: post three times a day for 30 days to test a content system, release one small personal project (zine, asset pack, mini game, capsule collection), and/or collaborate with one to three people over the year whose work you genuinely enjoy. I believe it will benefit us if we adopt the idea of thinking in "seasons," not in endless timelines. A 30‑day season is much easier to commit to than abstract "consistency."
Ask yourself:
What is the minimum income you're aiming for this year? (Hint: Use the Creator Pricing Calculator I built a bit further below.)
What is the minimum rate you won't go under?
What buffer do you need so a "bad month" doesn't break you?
Your money goals shouldn’t just say "earn more." They should provide clarity and help you grow your financial assets and standing over time. Begin by calculating your minimum rate, but use the "recommended rate" from the Creator Pricing Calculator. Stick to it, no matter what.
The only exception can come from very intentional edge cases that provide additional benefits to you, such as celebrity exposure, etc. Ideally, by the end of 2026, you have the equivalent of three months of cash expenses to start investing it to grow your financial portfolio. Say "NO" to at least two underpriced offers you would usually have agreed to throughout 2026, and you are off to a great start in my opinion.
Here's the part where I will help you make things practical. Because it's nice to chat to a like-minded being, but it's better to leave you with some concrete tools and steps you can use that I already use and know work well. Adjustments and optimizations are at your discretion, obviously.
Yes, I know, we can't pay for one, but how about some virtual assistance? I use a specific set that keeps me quite productive and lifts a lot of otherwise manual and time-consuming labour off my shoulders. Here are my favorites:
meetwith.xyz is a sleek, modern platform for scheduling and managing client and collaboration meetings with ease. It has helped me enhance my professionalism by offering paid consulting meetings in addition to free, accessible ones for different purposes. This is my meetwith page. Feel free to take inspiration from it.
Milanote has empowered me for many years and keeps my creative chaos in check. The tool comes with an intuitive, visual workspace for organizing ideas, mood boards, and projects seamlessly, making it my go-to for turning inspiration into polished creative output.
Perplexity.ai is my go-to research tool. I ditched ChatGPT ages ago! The truth is, for some of the work I do, I have to rely on an AI tool that provides accurate, cited insights; otherwise, it won't be much help to me.
Some projects I work on are sensitive, and the data shouldn't be stored with centralized companies, as I use their services. If I still want to use or work with AI, I use Ollama with the latest DeepSeek model installed. It is a text-based AI that runs directly on your computer.
You don't need a finance degree, nor any of these super fancy paid apps. You need one place where the math lives, and what you charge isn't based on a rough guess but facts. Every human needs a certain baseline to exist. That baseline, though, doesn't enable them to necessarily take time off, have a buffer for unforeseeable emergencies, or cover investments you should make to grow your financial portfolio over time.
In fact, while creative and cultural industries generate significant economic value and jobs according to a major study by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), creators themselves often struggle to capture that value in their own earnings.
Another study by the University of Glasgow of visual artists reported a median self‑employed income of about £12,500 per year—roughly half the minimum wage and around 40% below what they earned in 2010 in real terms. Even when extra non‑creative jobs are included, median earnings rise only to about £17,500, which is still described as unsustainable.
Last year, many of you confirmed the above during friendly calls or dedicated meetings. It was then that I asked many of you, also in a short survey, about your pricing strategies. It made me realize that most of us have a fact-based approach; instead, we guess our own value. As the statistics above confirm, creators tend to undervalue themselves and be undervalued, which ends up being a devil's circle.
As a first approach, I built the Creator Pricing Calculator so we can stop guessing and operate on facts. Here is how it works:
Make a copy of the original file. Don't overwrite the original! Read the "Instructions" on the first tab, and you are ready to jump into a fun little exercise to discover your recommended rates.
On the second tab, fill in your "Monthly Expenses" (greyed fields). Add more rows if needed. For now, the file should cover the most frequent ones, such as rent, food, internet, software, AI tools, subscriptions, donations, and fun.
It auto‑calculates your yearly cost of existing as a creator/human automatically, no manual intervention needed.
You can always adjust to your country's realistic tax rates, add a safety buffer, and reinvest on the third tab, "Income Calculator." You can also change other details, like billable hours, but I recommend using the sheet as-is for starters.
The sheet will automatically calculate how much gross income you actually need, and it will spit out on the fourth tab for "Service Pricing" your recommended rates for different types of work.
Give it a go and let me know in the comments below how you like the Creator Pricing Calculator. If it is helpful, I might keep developing it into something more. Keep in mind that if something doesn't match, adjust. That's the point. It's not about hitting some arbitrary "everyone should charge x" number. It's about understanding YOUR floor. Once you see it, it becomes much easier to recognize when a project is genuinely underpriced.
As I was sorting out my Dropbox archive over the holidays, I was made painfully aware that about 45% of my project archives are either unfinished or have a salty side taste (not the good one). This is because I didn't set any boundaries when I started that project.
The first time I got reminded that boundaries are super important was with a therapist around 5 years ago. She taught me to put up a ton of Post-It notes around my house that just said "NO." So whenever and wherever I was in my house on a client call, I would see these notes across my screen, reminding me that saying "NO" is often more valuable than saying "YES."
You shouldn't be improvising boundaries in your DMs. What inspired me to set mine was actually a standard message sent by my hair salon her in Lima, Peru. An automated message is sent once you communicate with them through WhatsApp to book an appointment:
Thank you for booking with us, please keep the following in mind:
We ask for the security deposit of S/100 of attending your appointment on the agreed day and time, thus avoiding affecting the agenda of your stylist.
If you wish to reschedule, it is only allowed to reschedule once and a maximum of one day before (until 8pm).
Keep in mind that there is a maximum of 15 minutes of waiting.
At first, I thought WTF, but then I thought to myself, "That's a masterful solution." It avoids confusion or miscommunication right from the first message exchange. If you are clear on what you want, things are much less likely to run haywire later.
So here are a few things YOU can do:
Make sure you are very upfront about your conditions, the solutions you can really deliver, and the cost to the client. Holding back will only and most often create problems in retrospect.
Pre‑write a few scripts, you can copy‑paste and easily send out if the client expects faster responses, such as:
- Thanks so much for thinking of me! My minimum for this scope is [rate]. If that works for you, here's how we can move forward.
- I don't do unpaid test work, but I'm happy to hop on a short call to see if we're a good match and the benefits of a potential collaboration are balanced.
- Right now, my calendar is full. I can take on new projects starting [month].
If you have questions that you feel need dedicated attention, set up a 15-minute call. Make sure it isn't longer so the client understands your time is valuable.
Insist on an advance payment of a minimum 25% of the total, especially from new clients. This ensures you will not go under with nothing if the client decides to ghost you during your work or similar.
After you have agreed on the overall conditions (deliverables and cost), make sure you have a co-signed or email-confirmed written agreement. Here is a simple template you can use as a foundation.
These tips seem obvious, but most of the time when creators have consulted me with their client troubles, all of the above or some of the above hadn't been checked off the list.
Once a month, do a tiny retro. Often, we tend to forget over the course of a year that bringing order to these more administrative issues is equally crucial as producing creative output. I recommend carving out a few hours at the end of your month to reflect on the following:
What felt good for you this month?
What drained you? What are the topics you need to find better solutions for?
What did your numbers actually look like? Are your expenses the same? Did you generate revenue, and what is the profit you can realistically take from it?
Which of your boundaries did you keep or break? Pick one you want to try and focus on with more strength for the upcoming month.
This isn't a trial. It's just you looking at the logs of your own game and deciding what to buff or nerf.
Keeping it simple is key to all of this. Don't overwhelm yourself. I know you are rested and potentially energized for the new year. That doesn't mean you can keep things up throughout the year with the same level of energy. From the chapter "Three Creator Goals We Need" above, pick one goal per section and start running with these. Your year might already turn out so much better than the last one.
I have realized more than once that I tend to be my biggest enemy and obstacle. Ideally, you learn this lesson much earlier than I did. Let me know how this is working out for you in the comments below and ...
... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
If you enjoy my writing, please consider supporting me. There are several ways of doing so, and not all of them cost money:
Subscribe to this blog. Thank you if you have already subscribed.
Get my free or paid membership tier powered by Unlock Protocol (it will unlock parts of my WIP website).
Leave a tip using the recently implemented system here on Paragraph by clicking the "Support" button at the top of the article and leaving a tip. Thank you if you have already done so.
There's a moment every January when the timeline for creators like us splits in two. Half of us are manifesting "six figures, dream clients, soft life." The other half is quietly opening their banking apps and subscription lists like a horror game.
This piece is for the second group: the ones who want the magic but are troubled by the math and by how to bring order to the chaos of their own making. The ones who are tired of treating their creative career like a vibes‑only experiment and are ready to build a system that actually holds them.
2026 doesn't need another vision board from you. It requires a clearer definition on the minimum you're not willing to fall below in energy, creativity, and money.
Let's build that together!
Every year, we set some version of the same goals:
"Post consistently."
"Grow my audience."
"Charge more."
And then the year happens. Algorithms change, opportunities pop up at 2 am, we say yes to "quick favors" for friends, and suddenly it's December again, and we're wondering where our time (and money) went.
After many years as a creator, I figured out that the problem isn't the goals themselves but the type of goals we set for ourselves. They are all "floating." They're not attached to anything concrete; no numbers, no containers, no boundaries; just good intentions.
For 2026, I think it is time to get to the core of the problem in a few easy steps, for myself and maybe for you as well. Not a new personality, just a new way your creative life becomes more efficient and operational.
When scrolling through TikTok the other day, I realized that most of us only set creative or financial goals. A more honest 2026 imo needs three buckets that talk to each other:
Ask yourself:
How much time do you realistically have for work (excluding admin hours)?
How many evenings or weekends should actually be off‑limits?
What do rest and play look like for you (yes, gaming obviously counts)?
Examples could include: one entirely off-screen day per week, a game you play for pure joy, a day you spent with your kid, or rules that allow meetings only to start at 10 am. The rules are yours to set, but human energy has its limits, and only driving close to the limit doesn't make us better or more successful creators! The sooner we admit that these are not "treats you earn when you're productive," but they are system requirements, the more efficient we will become.
Ask yourself:
What do you want to get better at?
What do you want to publish or release with the highest priority?
Who do you want to collaborate with?
Examples could include: post three times a day for 30 days to test a content system, release one small personal project (zine, asset pack, mini game, capsule collection), and/or collaborate with one to three people over the year whose work you genuinely enjoy. I believe it will benefit us if we adopt the idea of thinking in "seasons," not in endless timelines. A 30‑day season is much easier to commit to than abstract "consistency."
Ask yourself:
What is the minimum income you're aiming for this year? (Hint: Use the Creator Pricing Calculator I built a bit further below.)
What is the minimum rate you won't go under?
What buffer do you need so a "bad month" doesn't break you?
Your money goals shouldn’t just say "earn more." They should provide clarity and help you grow your financial assets and standing over time. Begin by calculating your minimum rate, but use the "recommended rate" from the Creator Pricing Calculator. Stick to it, no matter what.
The only exception can come from very intentional edge cases that provide additional benefits to you, such as celebrity exposure, etc. Ideally, by the end of 2026, you have the equivalent of three months of cash expenses to start investing it to grow your financial portfolio. Say "NO" to at least two underpriced offers you would usually have agreed to throughout 2026, and you are off to a great start in my opinion.
Here's the part where I will help you make things practical. Because it's nice to chat to a like-minded being, but it's better to leave you with some concrete tools and steps you can use that I already use and know work well. Adjustments and optimizations are at your discretion, obviously.
Yes, I know, we can't pay for one, but how about some virtual assistance? I use a specific set that keeps me quite productive and lifts a lot of otherwise manual and time-consuming labour off my shoulders. Here are my favorites:
meetwith.xyz is a sleek, modern platform for scheduling and managing client and collaboration meetings with ease. It has helped me enhance my professionalism by offering paid consulting meetings in addition to free, accessible ones for different purposes. This is my meetwith page. Feel free to take inspiration from it.
Milanote has empowered me for many years and keeps my creative chaos in check. The tool comes with an intuitive, visual workspace for organizing ideas, mood boards, and projects seamlessly, making it my go-to for turning inspiration into polished creative output.
Perplexity.ai is my go-to research tool. I ditched ChatGPT ages ago! The truth is, for some of the work I do, I have to rely on an AI tool that provides accurate, cited insights; otherwise, it won't be much help to me.
Some projects I work on are sensitive, and the data shouldn't be stored with centralized companies, as I use their services. If I still want to use or work with AI, I use Ollama with the latest DeepSeek model installed. It is a text-based AI that runs directly on your computer.
You don't need a finance degree, nor any of these super fancy paid apps. You need one place where the math lives, and what you charge isn't based on a rough guess but facts. Every human needs a certain baseline to exist. That baseline, though, doesn't enable them to necessarily take time off, have a buffer for unforeseeable emergencies, or cover investments you should make to grow your financial portfolio over time.
In fact, while creative and cultural industries generate significant economic value and jobs according to a major study by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), creators themselves often struggle to capture that value in their own earnings.
Another study by the University of Glasgow of visual artists reported a median self‑employed income of about £12,500 per year—roughly half the minimum wage and around 40% below what they earned in 2010 in real terms. Even when extra non‑creative jobs are included, median earnings rise only to about £17,500, which is still described as unsustainable.
Last year, many of you confirmed the above during friendly calls or dedicated meetings. It was then that I asked many of you, also in a short survey, about your pricing strategies. It made me realize that most of us have a fact-based approach; instead, we guess our own value. As the statistics above confirm, creators tend to undervalue themselves and be undervalued, which ends up being a devil's circle.
As a first approach, I built the Creator Pricing Calculator so we can stop guessing and operate on facts. Here is how it works:
Make a copy of the original file. Don't overwrite the original! Read the "Instructions" on the first tab, and you are ready to jump into a fun little exercise to discover your recommended rates.
On the second tab, fill in your "Monthly Expenses" (greyed fields). Add more rows if needed. For now, the file should cover the most frequent ones, such as rent, food, internet, software, AI tools, subscriptions, donations, and fun.
It auto‑calculates your yearly cost of existing as a creator/human automatically, no manual intervention needed.
You can always adjust to your country's realistic tax rates, add a safety buffer, and reinvest on the third tab, "Income Calculator." You can also change other details, like billable hours, but I recommend using the sheet as-is for starters.
The sheet will automatically calculate how much gross income you actually need, and it will spit out on the fourth tab for "Service Pricing" your recommended rates for different types of work.
Give it a go and let me know in the comments below how you like the Creator Pricing Calculator. If it is helpful, I might keep developing it into something more. Keep in mind that if something doesn't match, adjust. That's the point. It's not about hitting some arbitrary "everyone should charge x" number. It's about understanding YOUR floor. Once you see it, it becomes much easier to recognize when a project is genuinely underpriced.
As I was sorting out my Dropbox archive over the holidays, I was made painfully aware that about 45% of my project archives are either unfinished or have a salty side taste (not the good one). This is because I didn't set any boundaries when I started that project.
The first time I got reminded that boundaries are super important was with a therapist around 5 years ago. She taught me to put up a ton of Post-It notes around my house that just said "NO." So whenever and wherever I was in my house on a client call, I would see these notes across my screen, reminding me that saying "NO" is often more valuable than saying "YES."
You shouldn't be improvising boundaries in your DMs. What inspired me to set mine was actually a standard message sent by my hair salon her in Lima, Peru. An automated message is sent once you communicate with them through WhatsApp to book an appointment:
Thank you for booking with us, please keep the following in mind:
We ask for the security deposit of S/100 of attending your appointment on the agreed day and time, thus avoiding affecting the agenda of your stylist.
If you wish to reschedule, it is only allowed to reschedule once and a maximum of one day before (until 8pm).
Keep in mind that there is a maximum of 15 minutes of waiting.
At first, I thought WTF, but then I thought to myself, "That's a masterful solution." It avoids confusion or miscommunication right from the first message exchange. If you are clear on what you want, things are much less likely to run haywire later.
So here are a few things YOU can do:
Make sure you are very upfront about your conditions, the solutions you can really deliver, and the cost to the client. Holding back will only and most often create problems in retrospect.
Pre‑write a few scripts, you can copy‑paste and easily send out if the client expects faster responses, such as:
- Thanks so much for thinking of me! My minimum for this scope is [rate]. If that works for you, here's how we can move forward.
- I don't do unpaid test work, but I'm happy to hop on a short call to see if we're a good match and the benefits of a potential collaboration are balanced.
- Right now, my calendar is full. I can take on new projects starting [month].
If you have questions that you feel need dedicated attention, set up a 15-minute call. Make sure it isn't longer so the client understands your time is valuable.
Insist on an advance payment of a minimum 25% of the total, especially from new clients. This ensures you will not go under with nothing if the client decides to ghost you during your work or similar.
After you have agreed on the overall conditions (deliverables and cost), make sure you have a co-signed or email-confirmed written agreement. Here is a simple template you can use as a foundation.
These tips seem obvious, but most of the time when creators have consulted me with their client troubles, all of the above or some of the above hadn't been checked off the list.
Once a month, do a tiny retro. Often, we tend to forget over the course of a year that bringing order to these more administrative issues is equally crucial as producing creative output. I recommend carving out a few hours at the end of your month to reflect on the following:
What felt good for you this month?
What drained you? What are the topics you need to find better solutions for?
What did your numbers actually look like? Are your expenses the same? Did you generate revenue, and what is the profit you can realistically take from it?
Which of your boundaries did you keep or break? Pick one you want to try and focus on with more strength for the upcoming month.
This isn't a trial. It's just you looking at the logs of your own game and deciding what to buff or nerf.
Keeping it simple is key to all of this. Don't overwhelm yourself. I know you are rested and potentially energized for the new year. That doesn't mean you can keep things up throughout the year with the same level of energy. From the chapter "Three Creator Goals We Need" above, pick one goal per section and start running with these. Your year might already turn out so much better than the last one.
I have realized more than once that I tend to be my biggest enemy and obstacle. Ideally, you learn this lesson much earlier than I did. Let me know how this is working out for you in the comments below and ...
... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
If you enjoy my writing, please consider supporting me. There are several ways of doing so, and not all of them cost money:
Subscribe to this blog. Thank you if you have already subscribed.
Get my free or paid membership tier powered by Unlock Protocol (it will unlock parts of my WIP website).
Leave a tip using the recently implemented system here on Paragraph by clicking the "Support" button at the top of the article and leaving a tip. Thank you if you have already done so.
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Stella Achenbach
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