Freelance Rate Calculator
Work back from the income you want to the rate that funds it — counting overhead, a tax set-aside, and the share of hours you can genuinely bill rather than a 2,080-hour year. Shows the naive answer beside the honest one, plus day-rate and salary conversions in both directions.
Your data never leaves your device Learn more
Estimate only — not tax, legal, or accounting advice. This is the published math for freelance rate calculator. Confirm final figures with your payroll provider, accountant, or the state agency before acting on them.
Software, insurance, equipment, workspace.
A share you choose to hold back — this tool does not compute your tax.
Holiday, sickness, the quiet weeks.
The share of available hours you can actually bill. 60–70% is typical once quoting, admin and finding the next job are counted.
Hourly rate
$108.02
Day rate (8h)
$864
Billable hours / year
1222
Revenue needed
$132,000
Unbilled (real) hours
658
The 2,080-hour answer
$43.27
Why most rate calculators undershoot:
Dividing $90,000 by 2,080 hours gives $43.27 — a rate that bills every available hour, takes no time off, and sets nothing aside for tax. The honest rate above is 150% higher, and the difference is not ambition — it is arithmetic.
- 658 hours a year are available but not billable — quoting, admin, invoicing, and the work of finding the next job. They are real hours and this rate is what pays for them.
- Dividing your target by a 2,080-hour year — the assumption most rate calculators make — would give $43.27 an hour. That is 149.64% below this rate, because it bills every available hour, takes no holiday, and sets nothing aside for tax.
Freelance Rate Calculator: computed in your browser; nothing is transmitted.
Method: Rate = (target income + overhead) ÷ (1 − tax set-aside) ÷ billable hours, where billable hours = available hours × utilisation. Inverse-tested in tests/pricing.test.ts.
🎓 Understand this tool
What it is
A rate builder that works backward from the income you want to the hourly, day and project rates that fund it — through overhead, a tax set-aside, and the fraction of your hours that are genuinely billable, which is the number most rate advice quietly assumes away.
How it works
Available hours are what remain after weeks off; billable hours are that figure multiplied by utilisation; and revenue must cover income plus overhead after the tax share is removed, so the target is divided by one minus the set-aside rather than reduced by it. The rate is that revenue divided by the billable hours.
Getting the most from it
- Set the income you actually want, before tax — not the rate you have seen others charge.
- Add your real overhead: software, insurance, equipment, workspace.
- Choose a tax set-aside. The tool does not compute your tax; it reserves the share you tell it to.
- Be honest about utilisation. Count the hours spent quoting, invoicing, and finding work — they are unbillable and real.
- Compare the result with the 2,080-hour figure shown beside it, which is the answer most calculators give.
Reading your result
The hourly rate is your floor for new work, not a ceiling. The unbilled-hours figure is worth staring at: those hours are the business running itself, and the rate exists to pay for them. The day rate assumes eight billed hours in the day.
What it can't tell you
It cannot tell you what clients in your market will pay — only what rate makes your target income arithmetically possible. It reserves a tax percentage you choose rather than computing tax law; the personal-tax depth for self-employment lives at workmoneytax.com.
Frequently asked questions
Because dividing by 2,080 assumes every available hour is billed, no holiday is taken, and no tax is set aside. Quoting, admin, invoicing and finding the next client consume 30–40% of a real freelance year, and the rate has to pay for those hours too. The published figure is not ambition — it is the same income, divided by the hours that actually generate it.
Related calculators
Break-even
Work out how many units you need to sell before the business covers its costs. Charts the crossing point, counts your own pay as a cost, includes the card fees and refunds most calculators leave out, and separates cash break-even from the accounting one. A planning estimate from your own figures.
Margin vs markup
Margin is a share of the price; markup is a share of the cost, and pricing as if they were the same number quietly gives away a sixth of your profit. Convert between the two, price for a target margin the right way, and see the common mistake printed beside the published method.
Employee cost
What a hire actually costs once employer taxes, benefits and overhead are counted. Social Security to this year’s wage base, Medicare, federal unemployment after the state credit, and your state’s own unemployment tax at its own wage base — every rate cited to the agency that published it, with the math shown.
Change alerts — when a state revises the guideline or deadline behind this page
One email when the numbers change. Double opt-in, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.