Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Stop guessing what to charge. Enter the income you actually want to take home and this calculator works out the hourly rate you need, after expenses, taxes and the fact that you can't bill every hour you work. Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Show the math
Estimate only, your real tax situation, region and market set the final number. This is your floor, not a ceiling.
How to calculate your freelance hourly rate
The mistake almost every new freelancer makes is dividing their old salary by 2,080 hours and quoting that. It guarantees you earn less than you did as an employee, because you're now also paying for taxes your employer used to cover, tools they used to buy, and all the unpaid time between projects. The correct method works backwards from the life you want, not from a salary you've left behind:
- Start with the income you want to keep. Your real target, what hits your bank account after everything.
- Add your annual business expenses. Software, hardware, your accountant, insurance, the cost of running you.
- Gross it up for tax. Divide by (1 − your tax rate) so the money left after tax still covers your target.
- Add a buffer. Late payers, scope creep and dry spells are guaranteed. A 10% cushion is sensible.
- Divide by your real billable hours. Weekly billable hours × working weeks. This is the number that surprises people, and the one that makes your rate correct.
Why your freelance rate looks "too high" (it isn't)
A $60,000 salary feels like about $29/hour. But that employee was paid for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with paid holidays, sick leave, employer tax contributions, a pension and a laptop they didn't buy. A freelancer aiming for the same take-home, billing 25 hours a week for 46 weeks while covering their own taxes and tools, needs to charge roughly three times that headline rate just to break even on the same lifestyle. Charging less isn't being competitive, it's quietly working for free.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge per hour as a freelancer?
Start from the income you actually want to take home, add your annual business expenses, gross that up for the taxes you set aside, add a small buffer, then divide by the number of hours you can realistically bill in a year (not the hours you work, the hours a client pays for). For most full-time freelancers that lands meaningfully higher than their old salary divided by 2,080.
Why is my freelance rate higher than my old salary worked out to?
An employee is paid for ~2,080 hours a year and gets paid holidays, sick days, employer-funded taxes, software and a pension. A freelancer bills far fewer hours (admin, sales and downtime are unpaid), pays both halves of their taxes, buys their own tools, and gets paid nothing for time off. Your rate has to cover all of that, so it is correctly much higher than a naive salary-per-hour figure.
How many hours can a freelancer actually bill per week?
Almost nobody bills 40. Once you remove sales, admin, invoicing, learning and gaps between projects, 20 to 30 billable hours a week is realistic for an established full-time freelancer. The calculator defaults to 25 for this reason, using 40 will quietly under-price you.
Should I charge hourly or per project?
Use the hourly number from this calculator as your internal floor, the minimum your time is worth. Then quote clients a fixed project price based on your estimated hours times that floor (plus margin). You capture the upside when you work efficiently, and the client gets price certainty.
Do I need to include taxes in my rate?
Yes. The money a client pays you is not yours, a chunk goes to income tax and self-employment / national insurance. Enter the percentage you set aside and the calculator grosses your rate up so that what is left after tax still covers your target income.