Freelance hourly rate calculator
Most rates are picked from what the last job paid, or what a competitor charges. This one starts from the income you actually need, then adds back the costs salaried work hides: tax, expenses, holidays and the hours nobody pays for.
Your numbers
Your recommended rate
| Income + expenses needed | $0 |
| Grossed up for tax | $0 |
| With profit margin | $0 |
| Working weeks | 0 |
| Total working hours | 0 |
| Billable hours | 0 |
Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.
How this calculator works
Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. At 40 hours a week with four weeks off and 60% billable time, that is 1,152 billable hours — not the 2,080 hours a salary is based on. That gap is why dividing a target salary by 2,080 always underprices freelance work.
Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together. Gross that total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 25% estimate, divide by 0.75 — so the amount left after tax still covers income and expenses. Then add your profit margin, and divide the result by your billable hours. That final number is your hourly rate.
The billable percentage is the input people get wrong most often. Admin, marketing, proposals, revisions and chasing invoices are real work, but no client pays for them directly. If you have never tracked it, 50–65% is a realistic starting range for solo freelancers; 80% or more usually means the rate comes out too low.