Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Work backward from the income you actually want to take home to the hourly rate you need to charge — accounting for unpaid time, taxes, and business expenses that a salaried job doesn’t make you think about.
Work out your rate
Why freelance rates need to be higher than a salaried hourly wage
A salaried employee gets paid for every hour they’re at work, plus benefits, plus paid time off, with taxes withheld automatically. A freelancer only gets paid for billable hours — the time spent invoicing, marketing, admin, and unpaid client calls doesn’t disappear, it just isn’t billable. This calculator starts from the income you actually want to keep, adds back a buffer for self-employment tax and business expenses, then divides by your realistic billable hours (not total working hours) to find the rate that actually gets you there.
How to calculate your freelance rate in 4 steps
- Set your target annual take-home income — what you actually want to keep, after tax.
- Enter realistic billable hours per week — not total working hours (see below).
- Enter weeks worked per year — account for holidays, sick time, and slow periods.
- Add a tax and expenses buffer — the calculator grosses up your target and divides by billable hours.
Why billable hours are usually far fewer than 40/week
Most freelancers can only bill 20–30 hours in a 40-hour work week — the rest goes to finding clients, invoicing, and running the business itself. Using an unrealistically high billable-hours number is the most common reason freelancers underprice their work.
Worked example
Targeting $60,000 take-home, billing 25 hours a week for 48 weeks a year, with a 30% tax and expenses buffer: gross income needed is $60,000 ÷ (1 − 0.30) = $85,714. Total billable hours for the year are 25 × 48 = 1,200. Divide the two and you need to charge $71.43 an hour to hit that target.
Required rate at different billable hours
Same $60,000 target and 30% buffer, 48 weeks a year — here’s how the required hourly rate changes with how many hours a week you can actually bill:
| Billable hours/week | Required rate |
|---|---|
| 15 | $119.05/hr |
| 20 | $89.29/hr |
| 25 | $71.43/hr |
| 30 | $59.52/hr |
This is exactly why realistic billable hours matter more than total working hours — fewer billable hours means a meaningfully higher rate is needed to hit the same take-home target.
Frequently asked questions
What tax/expense buffer percentage should I use?
In the US, self-employment tax alone is roughly 15.3% before income tax, so a 25–35% buffer is a common starting point — consult a tax professional for your specific situation and location.
Should I charge this exact hourly rate to every client?
Use it as your floor, not your ceiling. Many freelancers use project-based or value-based pricing instead of hourly billing once they know their baseline rate — this calculator tells you the minimum you should be earning per hour, however you structure your pricing.
How is a freelance rate different from a regular hourly wage?
A regular wage already assumes taxes are withheld and every hour worked gets paid. A freelance rate has to cover the self-employment tax, benefits, and unbillable admin time a job normally absorbs for you — which is why it’s always higher than an equivalent salaried wage for the same take-home amount.