Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Work out what to charge per hour based on your income goal, expenses, and billable time.
Charge per hour
$0
Per day (8 hrs)
$0
Billable hours / year
0
How this freelance rate calculator works
Most freelancers underprice themselves because they only think about their target salary and forget everything else that has to come out of the same pot: taxes, software and equipment, unpaid admin time, sick days, and vacation. This calculator works backward from your actual take-home goal to a realistic hourly rate:
- It adds your desired income and your annual business expenses together.
- It grosses that up for your tax reserve, since taxes come out of revenue, not income.
- It adds your profit margin as a buffer for slow months and rate negotiation room.
- It divides the result by your realistic annual billable hours — not 52 weeks × 40 hours, but your actual billable hours per week × the weeks you'll actually be invoicing clients.
All of this runs locally in your browser as you move the sliders — nothing you enter here is sent anywhere.
Why "billable hours" isn't 40 hours a week
Full-time employees get paid for meetings, admin, and slow days. Freelancers only get paid for the hours a client is actually billed for. Most freelancers can realistically bill 20–30 hours in a 40-hour work week once you account for proposals, invoicing, marketing, and client communication — which is why the default above is 25, not 40.