Orientation, not administration
Most financial tools for freelancers are built around the question: what happened? They count invoices, categorize expenses, produce overviews. Useful, but not enough.
Peil asks a different question: where do I stand right now?
That sounds like a nuance. It's a fundamentally different orientation. Looking back is valuable when you want to learn. Looking forward is essential when you have to make decisions. Most freelancers need both — but are almost entirely missing the second.
Peil is not a bookkeeping program. It's a financial compass. It shows you how your net effective hourly rate develops, what your billability does, whether your reserves grow with your income — and what changes if you take on that new project, raise that price, or work less this month.
The water gauge as metaphor
A water gauge measures the level. Not good or bad — just the state of things, precise and honest. You can read a figure off it. You can see whether it's rising or falling. You can predict when it becomes critical.
That's what Peil wants to be. Not an alarm system. No gamification. No red-orange-green dashboard passing judgement on your financial behaviour. Just a precise instrument that shows you where you stand.
The name also refers to peiling (Dutch for taking a sounding) — taking a measurement, setting a course. And to peil houden: keeping something at level that would otherwise slowly sink. For many freelancers, that's exactly what financial orientation does: making sure you don't sink without noticing.
Soft and vigilant
Finances can make you anxious. That's understandable. Real things are at stake: your mortgage, your pension, your security.
Peil doesn't want to stoke fear. But it also doesn't want to lull you. The philosophy we call soft vigilance means: give people the information they need, in a way that helps instead of paralyzes. Be honest about risks without dramatizing them. Provide context, not judgement.
A freelancer who knows their reserve will last another three months can take action. A freelancer who only sees a red bar gets stressed. The difference is in how you present information — not in which information you give.
One number, honestly calculated
The net effective rate (NER) is the central number in Peil. Not revenue, not the rate, not profit — but the amount that actually remains per worked hour, after tax, after costs, after correcting for non-billable hours.
That number is confronting. Sometimes it's half of what you thought you were earning. But it's also the only number that lets you make an honest comparison: with colleagues in employment, with previous years, with your own financial goals.
The calculation is never simple. Peil does it for you — including self-employed deduction, SME profit exemption, ZVW contribution, tax brackets — and shows how the elements contribute. No black box. No rounding that flatters you. Just the actual state.
What we deliberately don't do
Peil is not an all-in-one platform. That choice is deliberate.
We don't do bank-linked transaction classification (that's bookkeeping, not orientation). We don't do payroll. We don't do twenty integrations you have to maintain weekly. We don't want to be the tool you keep open on top of your real work.
We want to be the tool you open when you have a decision to make. That shows you what that decision means for your financial position. And then lets you go again.
About us
Peil is built by Jeroen Kortekaas and Ioanna Fourtouna.
Jeroen is a freelance designer and developer in Amsterdam. He started Peil because, as a freelancer, he wanted to reason clearly about his own worth — not the rate on the invoice, but what actually remained after tax, costs and non-billable hours. An honest number. Something that gave him the confidence to justify his rates and defend his financial position.
Ioanna specializes in community-led growth and brings experience in user acquisition and community building for freelancers and the self-employed. She makes sure Peil reaches the people who benefit most.
That's what they want to give others too: the confidence to reason about your own worth.