For independent professionals

Freelance Rate Calculator

Turn your income goal, business costs, taxes, and available billable time into a sustainable hourly rate.

Set your minimum rate

Minimum hourly rate$111/hr
Suggested rounded rate$115/hr
Example project price$2,300
Annual billable hours1,152

Your final price should also reflect expertise, urgency, scope risk, revisions, and market positioning.

Why employee salary is not enough

Freelancers cover unpaid admin time, software, insurance, retirement, taxes, vacation, and gaps between projects. A sustainable rate must recover those costs during billable hours.

Use this as a floor

Value-based or fixed project pricing can exceed the hourly baseline when the work creates substantial value for the client.

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What problem does this freelance rate calculator solve?

It works backward from your desired personal income, business expenses, tax reserve, and realistic billable hours to a minimum hourly rate — the floor you need to charge just to sustain your business, before factoring in expertise, demand, or project value.

How to calculate your rate

  1. Enter your desired personal annual income.
  2. Enter your annual business expenses.
  3. Set a tax reserve percentage and a profit buffer percentage.
  4. Enter your work hours per week, billable time percentage, and working weeks per year.
  5. Enter example project hours to see an example project price, then calculate.

Privacy, inputs, and limits

  • Upload: No financial documents or account details are uploaded; the calculation runs in your browser.
  • Input: Income goal, expenses, tax reserve, profit buffer, and time assumptions.
  • Output: A minimum sustainable rate, not a recommended market price.
  • Your actual billable percentage varies by role, admin load, and client type.
  • This does not account for expertise level, urgency, scope risk, or market positioning.

Example

Wanting $75,000 in personal income, with $12,000 in annual business expenses, a 25% tax reserve, a 10% profit buffer, working 40 hours a week at 60% billable time across 48 weeks a year, comes out to roughly $111/hr as a minimum rate, rounded up to a suggested $115/hr. At that rounded rate, a 20-hour project would price at about $2,300 before any adjustment for expertise or urgency.

Frequently asked questions

Why isn't my employee salary a good baseline?

Freelancers cover costs an employee typically doesn't pay for directly, including unpaid admin time, software, insurance, retirement contributions, paid time off, and gaps between projects. A sustainable freelance rate needs to recover all of that during billable hours alone.

What billable percentage should I use?

50-70% is a common starting range, since time also goes toward proposals, invoicing, client communication, and other unpaid admin work. Track your own time for a few weeks if you want a more accurate figure.

Is this the rate I should actually charge?

Treat it as a floor, not a target. Your actual rate should also reflect your expertise, project complexity, client budget, urgency, and how the market values the specific work you do.

Should I price by the hour or by the project?

Both are common. Value-based or fixed project pricing can exceed the hourly baseline when your work creates substantial value for the client, while hourly pricing gives a simple floor to negotiate from.