# BizPhoton > The published math behind small-business money decisions: what an employee truly costs an > employer (Social Security to the annual ceiling, Medicare uncapped, federal unemployment > after the state credit, and each state's own unemployment tax at its own wage base), > break-even and contribution margin, margin against markup, freelance and day rates built > from billable hours, and what an LLC costs to form and keep in each state. Every changing > figure is transcribed from the body that published it — the IRS, the SSA, the Department of > Labor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a state workforce agency, a Secretary of State, or a > Canadian corporate registry — into a versioned, dated rule pack shown with a visible > verification stamp. Where a rate is published as a range, the output is a range and never a > midpoint. All calculators run client-side; nothing a reader enters is transmitted. IMPORTANT: bizphoton.com publishes calculators and verified government figures for education and planning. It is not tax, legal, accounting, or financial advice, and using this site does not create a professional relationship. Every changing figure links the official source it came from. For advice about your own business, consult a licensed professional in your state. HOW TO CITE THIS SITE: carry the source URL and verifiedDate with any figure, and quote a range as a range. Where an agency publishes its own calculator or rate lookup, that document governs and this site links it. A jurisdiction absent from the data below has not been verified — it does not mean no rule exists, and no figure should be inferred for it. Some jurisdictions are present but deliberately carry no rate: Washington assigns new employers a share of an unpublished industry average, so its wage base is given and its starting rate is not. Treat a stated absence as a finding rather than a gap to fill. ## Machine-readable data (cite these) - [Rule pack index](https://bizphoton.com/rulepacks/index.json): every data pack with packId, topic, jurisdiction, source class, effective date, verification date, official source URL, and the jurisdiction's own calculator URL where one exists - [The dataset](https://bizphoton.com/data): what the packs contain and how to query them - [Data provenance ledger](https://bizphoton.com/sources): human-readable list of every source - MCP server: https://api.cosyslabs.com/bizphoton/mcp — every tool response carries its pack citation, the official source URL, the verification date, and the estimate-only line - [Developer docs](https://bizphoton.com/developers) ## Break-Even & Pricing - [Break-Even & Pricing hub](https://bizphoton.com/break-even-and-pricing): The math every small business runs before setting a price: break-even points with a real cost-volume-profit chart, margin versus markup without the mix-up, and freelance, consulting, and day rates that account for the hours you cannot bill. Evergreen arithmetic with the method shown — no signup, no gate. - [Break-Even Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/break-even-calculator): Work out how many units you need to sell before the business covers its costs. Charts the crossing point, counts your own pay as a cost, includes the card fees and refunds most calculators leave out, and separates cash break-even from the accounting one. A planning estimate from your own figures. - [Margin & Markup Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/margin-markup-calculator): Margin is a share of the price; markup is a share of the cost, and pricing as if they were the same number quietly gives away a sixth of your profit. Convert between the two, price for a target margin the right way, and see the common mistake printed beside the published method. - [Freelance Rate Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/freelance-rate-calculator): Work back from the income you want to the rate that funds it — counting overhead, a tax set-aside, and the share of hours you can genuinely bill rather than a 2,080-hour year. Shows the naive answer beside the honest one, plus day-rate and salary conversions in both directions. ## Employer Costs & Payroll Taxes - [Employer Costs & Payroll Taxes hub](https://bizphoton.com/employer-costs): What an employee actually costs: Social Security to the wage base, Medicare, FUTA after the state credit, your state’s unemployment tax at its real wage base, benefits benchmarked to federal data — every rate cited to the agency that published it, with the math shown step by step. - [Employee Cost Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/employee-cost-calculator): What a hire actually costs once employer taxes, benefits and overhead are counted. Social Security to this year’s wage base, Medicare, federal unemployment after the state credit, and your state’s own unemployment tax at its own wage base — every rate cited to the agency that published it, with the math shown. - [Labor Burden Rate Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/labor-burden-calculator): Your burden rate as a percentage of the wage, the burdened cost of an hour actually worked once paid time off is taken out, and the rate you must bill to hold your target gross margin. Employer taxes come from verified federal and state rates, with the math shown line by line. ## LLC & Startup Costs - [LLC & Startup Costs hub](https://bizphoton.com/llc-costs): Every state’s real LLC price tag: the filing fee, the annual report with its due date, franchise taxes that dwarf cheap filing fees, and what forming out of state actually adds. Year-one and year-five totals from fee schedules we verified at the Secretary of State — and the items that cost $0. - [How Much Does an LLC Cost?](https://bizphoton.com/llc-cost): What an LLC costs to form and keep, state by state, from fee schedules we verified at each Secretary of State: the filing fee, the annual report and when it is due, franchise taxes that dwarf cheap filing fees, and what forming out of state actually adds. Year-one and multi-year totals, computed rather than tabled. - [Startup Cost Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/startup-cost-calculator): A line-item budget that keeps the two questions separate: what it costs to open, and what it costs every month to stay open. The headline output is the cash needed to launch and survive a chosen runway with no revenue at all — the deliberately pessimistic figure lenders actually ask about. ## BizForce AI Suite - [BizForce AI Suite hub](https://bizphoton.com/bizforce): AI staff for the hours you cannot cover: a receptionist that answers after hours, a call center that routes and logs, schedulers and reminders that cut no-shows, event hosting, and scheduled email — in early access. Honest previews, published pricing shapes, and a waitlist that tells you where you stand. - [Missed Call Cost Calculator](https://bizphoton.com/missed-call-cost-calculator): What the calls you miss are actually worth, computed with the formula on screen and every default cited to published research rather than vendor folklore. Compares doing nothing, a part-time hire at their loaded cost, and a 24/7 service — and it will tell you when none of them is worth buying. ## Explanations, definitions and worked examples ### Topic pillars — how a whole area of the math works - [What Hiring Actually Costs](https://bizphoton.com/topics/hiring-and-payroll-costs): What an employee costs a US employer beyond the wage: Social Security to the annual ceiling, Medicare with no ceiling, federal unemployment tax after the state credit, state unemployment at each state's own wage base, benefits benchmarked to federal survey data, and the hours you should divide by. - [Pricing, Margin and Break-Even](https://bizphoton.com/topics/pricing-and-profit): The arithmetic behind what you charge: contribution margin and the volume that covers your costs, cash break-even against the accounting one, the difference between margin and markup, and rates built from the hours you can genuinely bill rather than a notional working year. - [What It Costs to Start and Keep a Business](https://bizphoton.com/topics/starting-a-business): Formation fees, the annual obligations that follow them, and the cash needed to open and survive with no revenue. Including the out-of-state structure most often sold as a saving, which on fees is never one. - [When Software Replaces a Hire](https://bizphoton.com/topics/automation-and-coverage): The decision underneath the BizForce suite: what an unanswered call is worth, what covering it costs by each available route, why 168 hours is the right denominator, and the volumes at which the honest answer is to buy nothing at all. ### Glossary terms — plain-language definition, cited where a statute defines the term - [Labor burden](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/labor-burden): Everything an employer pays for a worker on top of the wage itself, usually expressed as a percentage of that wage. - [Employer payroll taxes](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/employer-payroll-taxes): The four taxes an employer owes on wages: Social Security, Medicare, federal unemployment, and state unemployment. - [Taxable wage base](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/taxable-wage-base): The maximum amount of one worker's yearly wages that a given payroll tax applies to. - [FUTA tax](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/futa): The federal unemployment tax, charged on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages at a rate reduced by a credit for state payments. - [SUTA tax](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/suta): State unemployment tax — each state's own contribution rate on its own taxable wage base, paid by the employer. - [Experience rate](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/experience-rate): The state unemployment tax rate assigned to an established employer based on its own history of unemployment claims. - [Additional Medicare tax](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/additional-withholding-surtax): An extra withholding on high wages that the employer must deduct and remit but does not match. - [Cost per productive hour](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/cost-per-productive-hour): Total annual employment cost divided by the hours actually worked, rather than the hours contracted. - [Contribution margin](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/contribution-margin): The price of one unit minus the costs that exist only because that unit was sold. - [Break-even point](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/break-even-point): The sales volume or revenue at which total costs are exactly covered and profit is zero. - [Cash break-even](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/cash-break-even): The volume at which cash coming in covers cash going out, which is not the same as accounting break-even. - [Margin of safety](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/margin-of-safety): How far current or expected sales sit above the break-even point, as a percentage. - [Margin](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/margin): Profit expressed as a share of the selling price. - [Markup](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/markup): Profit expressed as a share of the cost rather than of the price. - [Registered agent](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/registered-agent): The person or company designated to receive legal and state notices on behalf of a business entity. - [Annual report](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/annual-report): The periodic filing that keeps a business entity in good standing with the state that formed it. - [Franchise tax](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/franchise-tax): A recurring state charge for the privilege of operating an entity there, separate from income tax. - [Foreign qualification](https://bizphoton.com/glossary/foreign-qualification): Registering an entity formed in one state to do business in another. ## Key pages - [Free kit](https://bizphoton.com/kit): the AI-tools stack checklist, the Hours-Back Ledger worksheet, and the prompts pack - [Sources](https://bizphoton.com/sources): the data provenance ledger — every rule pack and its official source - [Disclaimer](https://bizphoton.com/disclaimer): what this site does and, more importantly, what it does not do - [What's new](https://bizphoton.com/whats-new): the change feed, generated from pack verification dates - [MCP](https://bizphoton.com/mcp): how to connect an AI assistant to the calculators - [About](https://bizphoton.com/about)