// free tools · freelance rate calculator
Freelance rate calculator
Work backwards from the take-home pay you want to the hourly and day rate you need to charge. The maths is shown below the result.
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How to use it
- Enter the yearly take-home pay you want and your tax set-aside percentage.
- Add your monthly business costs and an optional profit buffer.
- Enter weeks off, hours per week and the share of those hours you can bill. Be honest: this has the biggest effect on the rate.
- Read your minimum and suggested hourly rate and day rate. Optionally enter your current rate to see what it earns in a year.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent or saved anywhere.
// want this in a spreadsheet?
Keep the numbers, then track the year.
Download the free Price-It-Right Calculator (same maths, plus project quotes) for Google Sheets and Excel. Then log income, expenses and invoices in the Freelancer Money Dashboard ($19) to see if you're on track.
// tools we’d use
Tools we'd use to run the business side.
Once you know your rate, you still have to quote it, invoice it and get paid. These are the tools we'd look at first.
Disclosure: We don't earn anything from these links today. If that changes, we'll say so here.
Bonsai
Proposals, contracts, invoices and time tracking for freelancers in one place.
Visit Bonsai (opens in a new tab)HoneyBook
Client management for service businesses: proposals, contracts, invoices and online payments.
Visit HoneyBook (opens in a new tab)Gamma
AI-assisted presentations and documents, handy for turning a quote into a clean proposal.
Visit Gamma (opens in a new tab)
Useful Plays isn’t affiliated with these companies. Check each tool’s current features and pricing on its own site. We count clicks on these links to see whether they’re useful: no cookies and nothing about you (privacy).
Questions
How is the hourly rate worked out?
Pre-tax profit = take-home ÷ (1 − tax %). Revenue needed = (pre-tax profit + yearly business costs) × (1 + buffer %). Hourly rate = revenue ÷ billable hours, where billable hours = (52 − weeks off) × hours per week × billable share.
What billable share should I use?
It's the part of your working week you can actually invoice for. Admin, sales, email and learning aren't billable. If you don't track it yet, start with a cautious guess and adjust once you have a few months of records. The table shows how the rate changes from 40% to 100%.
Is the tax set-aside accurate?
It's a flat percentage you choose, not a tax calculation. Real tax depends on where you live, your deductions and your income. Ask a qualified tax professional if you need an exact figure.
Why is the suggested rate rounded up?
The minimum rate is the exact break-even for your goal. The suggested rate rounds it up to the next $5 so a small shortfall in billable hours doesn't put you under.
Is this the same as the free Price-It-Right Calculator?
It uses the same formulas. The free spreadsheet adds nine editable cost lines, a project quote with contingency and a chart, and you can keep it with your own numbers.