We are the MonoTape team. As a freelancer, pricing a project usually comes down to the same arithmetic: estimate the hours for each task, multiply by your hourly rate, and add it all up. Simple enough — until you decide to raise your rate, or you realize one task will take twice as long, and now you are redoing every multiplication on a calculator that remembers nothing. The math is trivial; keeping it editable is the part that breaks.
Your rate is everywhere, so changing it is painful
A freelance quote is hours times rate, repeated for every task: research, drafting, revisions, a call or two. On a standard calculator you compute 6 * 75 + 10 * 75 + 4 * 75 and get a total — but your rate is buried in every term. The day you move from $75 to $90 an hour, you have to retype the whole chain by hand, and it is easy to miss one and quote yourself short.
A notes app keeps the task list but will not multiply, so you do the sums elsewhere and copy them in. What pricing your time really wants is one place where each task is a labeled line and the rate lives in a single spot you can change once to re-price the entire quote.
Put the rate on one line and reference it
This is exactly the kind of repeated, rate-driven math we built MonoTape for. You put your rate on its own labeled line, then write each task as hours times that rate, referencing it by name. The rate appears once but drives every task.
A quote for a small design project looks like this:
Now the quote reads as a clear breakdown: each task shows its hours and its share of the total, and your rate is stated once at the top. When the client asks how the number is built, you read it straight off the tape. When you want to see what a lighter scope costs, you can drop a task and watch the quote fall.
Change the rate once, re-price the whole quote
Here is where the single rate line earns its keep. Move from $75 to $90 an hour and you edit just the Rate line — every task that references it recalculates, and so does the quote. No hunting through the chain, no risk of leaving one task at the old number.
Pricing your time is a tool problem, not a math problem. Put the rate on one labeled line, write each task as hours times the rate, and change the rate once to re-price everything. It all saves locally on your device, so last week's quote is still there to copy from. For the broader job of assembling a quick estimate, see how to build a quick work estimate, and for the underlying pattern of repeated quantity-times-price math, read how to add up unit-price-times-quantity without retyping.
MonoTape
A calculator notepad where you label your math and one edit recalculates everything. Freelance quotes, work estimates, event budgets — whatever you calculate stays on the tape. Free to use.
Learn more about MonoTapeFrequently asked questions
Can I change my rate once and update every task?
Yes. Put the rate on its own labeled line and reference it in each task. Edit that one line and every task that uses it recalculates, along with the quote total.
Does it work for hours-times-rate or quantity-times-price?
Both. The pattern is the same: a labeled line for the multiplier you share, and one line per item that references it. It fits hourly work and fixed unit pricing alike.
Will my old quotes still be there next time?
Yes. Everything is saved locally on your device, so a past quote is right there to reopen and adapt. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Is it free?
Yes. Labeled calculations, references, auto-recalculation, and tape-style history — every feature mentioned here is free. It works on both iPhone and Android.