A strop works with compound: a thin paste that helps the leather finish the edge. Side work has its own paste — platform fees, tools, unpaid setup, travel that nobody bills. The number that matters is not the headline invoice. It is what stays after the compound is wiped away.
Write the gross. Subtract fees. Subtract tools bought for the work. Subtract unpaid hours spent learning a tool that only this offer demanded. What remains, divided by the free hours you wrote on the strop, is the rate for that stroke.
Why the paste is easy to miss
Compound looks like progress. Learning a new app, building a profile, waiting for a first reply — each feels like motion. None of it is free. If those hours never appear in the note, the edge looks sharper than it is.
Strop Pad does not publish earnings promises. Illustrative numbers in a guide are for arithmetic, not for a forecast. The aim is a clear rate after costs, so a person can decide whether the stroke is worth repeating.
Protecting the main steel
A grindstone removes metal. A strop does not. Offers that need every weeknight, unpaid training with no end date, or tools that only pay off after months of evenings are grindstones. They wear the week that pays the rent.
Keep the free block short. Price it after compound. If the rate after costs is too thin, leave that offer off the leather.
Read next: compound for the evening stroke and strokes that wear the main steel.