The majority of home based business is in the scope of providing a serving job where the business owner is not paying for tangible item. For example, business consultants are not selling anything where they are using their own knowledge and capability to help their clients. Running a servicing business would usually need lesser start up capital and working capital compare to business who sell products.

Lets take the business consultation service for example, if you need $5000 per year to run this home based business and this cost including the advertising, marketing and other expenses, then the business owner would need to determine an hourly rate. If the business owner choose to work 30 hours a week which is about 1560 hours a year then the business owner need to charge an hourly rate of $3.3 to breakeven. If the business owner charge an hourly rate of $6, then they will make a profit of $4360 per year.

How much to charge is usually determined by couple of factors, the home based business owner have to calculate the rate base on their own schedule and how many clients they are targeting to handle in a year.