Freelance Rate Calculator

A freelance rate calculator derives the hourly rate you must charge from what you need to earn: (target income + business costs) ÷ true billable hours. The revelation is in the denominator — a 40-hour week yields perhaps 20–25 billable hours after admin, marketing, proposals and the unpaid gaps between projects, and vacations, holidays and sick days cut the year to ~46 working weeks.

Worked honestly: $70,000 target + $15,000 costs (software, insurance, self-employment tax's employer half, equipment) = $85,000, over 25 h/week × 46 weeks = 1,150 billable hours → $74/hour — roughly double the naive $34/hour a salary-mindset division produces. That doubling is the calculator's whole lesson.

Enter your target annual income, estimated business expenses, weekly billable hours and weeks off, and read the hourly rate that actually delivers the target — plus day-rate and monthly equivalents.

Filling the inputs honestly: expenses include health insurance (the big one for US freelancers — often $6–12k/year), the self-employment tax surcharge (~7.65% extra vs employment), software, hardware, accounting and workspace; billable hours mean hours a client pays for — surveys consistently put freelancers' billable share at 50–60% of working time; weeks off should include holidays, vacation and a sick-day buffer (46–48 working weeks is realistic).

The rate this produces is your floor — the market and your positioning set the ceiling. Compare it against your niche's going rates, and remember the alternative framing: value-based project pricing routinely beats hourly for outcomes clients can measure.