Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator - What Should You Charge?

Enter Your Numbers

Target Annual Income ($)

Annual Business Expenses ($) Software, insurance, equipment, self-employment tax

Billable Hours Per Week Not total hours worked - only client-billable time

Weeks Off Per Year

Profit Buffer (%)

Hourly Rate to Charge

$0/hr

Breakdown

Required Annual Revenue$0

Billable Hours Per Year0

Base Rate (before buffer)$0/hr

Weekly Income Target$0/wk

Day Rate (8hrs)

Week Rate (billable hrs)

Monthly Retainer

How the Hourly Rate is Calculated

Step 1: Required Annual Revenue

Required Revenue = Target Income + Annual Business Expenses

Step 2: Billable Hours Per Year

Billable Hours = Billable Hours/Week × (52 − Weeks Off)

Step 3: Hourly Rate (with buffer)

Base Rate = Required Revenue ÷ Billable Hours
Final Rate = Base Rate × (1 + Profit Buffer% ÷ 100)

Worked Example

$75,000 target income, $8,000 expenses, 25 billable hrs/week, 4 weeks off, 15% buffer:

Required Revenue = 75,000 + 8,000 = $83,000
Billable Hours = 25 × (52-4) = 1,200 hrs/year
Base Rate = 83,000 ÷ 1,200 = $69.17/hr
Final Rate = 69.17 × 1.15 ≈ $79.55/hr

Frequently Asked Questions

Add your target annual take-home income to your annual business expenses to get your required annual revenue. Divide that by your actual billable hours per year (not total working hours - most freelancers only bill 60-70% of their working time due to admin, marketing, and unpaid work). Add a profit margin on top to build a buffer. The formula: Hourly Rate = (Target Income + Annual Expenses) ÷ Billable Hours × (1 + Profit Margin%).

Freelancers spend significant time on unpaid work: finding and pitching clients, invoicing, bookkeeping, professional development, replying to emails, and revisions. Most freelancers can realistically bill only 50-75% of their total working hours - someone working 40 hours a week might only have 25-30 billable hours. Underestimating this gap is one of the most common reasons freelancers under-price their work.

Yes. Unlike employees, freelancers must cover their own health insurance, retirement savings, paid time off, equipment, software, self-employment taxes (in the US, an additional ~15.3% for Social Security and Medicare), and periods without work. A freelance rate that simply matches an employee's hourly-equivalent salary typically leaves out all of these costs, which is why this calculator asks for business expenses and time off separately.

Both have tradeoffs. Hourly billing is simpler to calculate and protects you if a project runs long, but caps your earning potential and can create client anxiety about being watched closely. Project-based (flat fee) pricing rewards efficiency and can be more profitable as you get faster at your work, but requires accurately scoping the project upfront. Many freelancers use this hourly rate calculation as a baseline to estimate project fees, even if they ultimately quote a flat price.

Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator - Price Your Work Correctly

Most freelancers underprice their work, often by a wide margin, because they base their rate on a rough employee-salary comparison without accounting for unpaid time, business expenses, or time off. This calculator works backward from your actual income goal to the exact rate you need to charge, factoring in the realities of freelance work that a simple "salary ÷ 2,080 hours" calculation misses entirely.

The formula: Hourly Rate = (Target Income + Expenses) ÷ Billable Hours × (1 + Buffer%)
Quick example: $75,000 target, $8,000 expenses, 1,200 billable hrs/year, 15% buffer ~$79.55/hr

The Billable Hours Trap

The single biggest mistake in freelance pricing is assuming all working hours are billable. A freelancer working 40 hours a week doesn't bill 40 hours - time goes to finding clients, writing proposals, invoicing, bookkeeping, replying to emails, revisions, and professional development. Most experienced freelancers report realistically billing 50-75% of their working time. Using your actual working hours instead of billable hours in a rate calculation can result in a rate that's 30-50% too low.

Why Freelance Rates Should Exceed an "Equivalent" Salary

No employer-paid benefits: Health insurance, retirement matching, and paid time off all come out of your rate, not a separate benefits package.
Self-employment tax: In the US, freelancers pay both the employee and employer portions of Social Security and Medicare - an extra ~15.3% that a W-2 salary doesn't reflect.
Business expenses: Software subscriptions, equipment, marketing, and professional development are all costs an employee's salary doesn't need to cover.
Income variability: Freelance income isn't guaranteed every week - a healthy rate builds in a buffer for slow periods.

How this calculator works, and where the numbers come from

The Freelance Rate Calculator applies the standard formula for this calculation to the values you enter and updates the result as you type. The calculation itself happens in your browser, and the page explains the method so you can check any result by hand.

Please note: Results are estimates based on the numbers you enter, not accounting or financial advice.

Sources and further reading

Learn more

Read our guide: How Big Should Your Emergency Fund Be? A Practical Way to Size It

Last reviewed: October 6, 2026 by the CalcQube Editorial Team. See our editorial policy for how we build and check calculators, or report an error.

Freelance Rate Calculator