Background tasks include emails, administration, invoicing, client communication, and marketing. And yes, often long evenings (if not nights) hunched over your laptop, just to get through the daily to-dos. Have you ever calculated your true hourly rate as an entrepreneur?

The entrepreneurial dream – and the sad reality

Now take your monthly income and divide it by the total number of hours you actually work in a month. Not just billable client work, but also the hidden but mandatory tasks that eat away at your time. The work no one sees, no one claps for, but without it, your business wouldn’t run. Admin, corrections, re-planning, and all those small organisational details that consume hours daily (not to mention promoting your business).

If you’ve done the math, ask yourself honestly: do you like the result? Because if not, here’s the good news: increasing your hourly rate doesn’t have to start with raising your prices.

The secret: reduce your hours, don’t just raise your rates

The formula is simple:

Hourly Rate = Monthly Revenue ÷ Hours Worked

Raising prices isn’t always an option. But you can work on the other side of the equation: reduce the hours worked, while keeping revenue the same. Your hourly rate instantly goes up.

And that’s where AI comes in. The tasks you don’t enjoy or that don’t form the backbone of your revenue, you can confidently hand over to artificial intelligence.

What tasks can you hand over to AI?

• Client emails – customised tone and content, faster responses
• Social media post ideas and drafts – no more staring at a blinking cursor
• Product descriptions and ad copy – beat creative blocks
• Admin and templates – contracts, quotes, recurring docs
• Content planning and drafts – blogs, newsletters, campaign outlines
• Summaries – from meetings, blog posts, or research

These are all tasks that a digital assistant like Skillbot can complete faster than you. You can still fine-tune, but you’re never starting from scratch.

The result: more time where it matters

When your hourly rate is higher, you gain more free time.

Freeing up just 1-2 hours a day means 5-10 extra hours each week. That could be the moment your child smiles at you from the preschool stage. Or the liberating joy of finally doing that workout you’ve kept postponing. Or the laughter around a table with friends, or the glow of a great date not overshadowed by exhaustion.

All of this, without taking on less work or earning less money.

Time is the real paycheck

Running a business isn’t just about making money. It’s also about controlling your time. And if you smartly reorganise your tasks with AI, your hourly rate won’t just look better in your bank account – it’ll show in the quality of your life, too.