Freelance Rate Calculator

Calculate your minimum viable freelance rate from your target income, expenses, and tax rate.

Your Numbers

Annual Target Income (Net, $)

Annual Business Expenses ($)

Effective Tax Rate (%)

Working Weeks per Year

Billable Hours per Week

Minimum Hourly Rate

$84/hr

Gross needed: $121,429/year

Rate Breakdown

Period	Rate	Copy
Hourly	$84
Daily (8 hrs)	$675
Weekly (30 billable hrs)	$2,530
Monthly	$10,119

Project Estimates

Project Size	Hours	Estimate
Small (1 week)	40 hrs	$3,373
Medium (1 month)	160 hrs	$13,492
Large (2.5 months)	400 hrs	$33,730

Tips

Add 15–20% to project quotes to cover revision rounds and scope creep.
Expect 30–40% of your work time to be non-billable (admin, sales, meetings).
These are minimum rates — charge more as your expertise and demand grow.

About Freelance Rate Calculator

The Freelance Rate Calculator helps independent contractors and consultants determine the minimum hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly rates they need to charge in order to meet their income goals after accounting for business expenses and taxes. Enter your desired net income, anticipated annual expenses, effective tax rate, and expected billable hours to instantly see a full rate breakdown and project price estimates for small, medium, and large engagements.

Built and maintained by Meet Shah · Last updated 19 July 2026

What this tool is used for

Working out the hourly rate a target income actually requires.
Accounting for unbillable time, which is most of the reason rates look high.
Including expenses, tax and time off in a rate rather than discovering them later.
Producing a day rate and a project floor from the same figures.
Checking whether an offered rate covers your costs at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is a freelance rate not just salary divided by 2,080?: Because that division assumes every hour is billable and every cost is someone else's. Non-billable time, unpaid leave, self-employment tax, insurance, equipment and pension all come out of the same rate — the naive conversion typically lands 40–60% below what covers them.
How many hours a year are actually billable?: Most sustainable practices land between 1,000 and 1,400, not 2,080. Sales, admin, invoicing, learning and gaps between contracts are real hours that produce no invoice, and a rate calculated on full utilisation is a rate that fails in the first quiet month.
Should I bill hourly or by project?: Project pricing decouples your income from your speed, which rewards getting faster instead of penalising it. Hourly is simpler and safer on genuinely open-ended work. The usual failure is quoting a project at hourly-equivalent without pricing in scope risk.
How much should I set aside for tax?: Typically 25–35% of gross in most jurisdictions, and it is higher than an employee's equivalent because self-employment carries both halves of payroll tax. Setting it aside per invoice rather than per quarter is the practice that prevents the annual surprise.
Is raising my rate risky?: Less than it feels. A 20% increase means you can lose one client in six and be no worse off, and the clients most likely to leave over price are usually the ones consuming the most non-billable time. The arithmetic is worth running before assuming the answer.

Common errors and gotchas

Dividing a salary by 2080 hours, which ignores that a large share of freelance time is unbillable.
Forgetting tax, insurance, pension, equipment and software, all of which an employer used to cover.
Omitting holiday and sick time, which are unpaid and must be priced in.
Setting a rate from what others charge rather than from what your costs require.
Quoting a project price without a scope, which turns a fixed fee into an open-ended one.