The most common pricing mistake freelancers make is taking their old salary, dividing by 2,080 hours and calling that their rate. As a freelancer you pay your own taxes, health cover, software, equipment and retirement contributions, you get no paid holidays or sick days, and a big chunk of every week goes on unbilled work like admin, invoicing, marketing and chasing leads. This free freelance rate calculator works backwards from the life you want. Enter your target take-home income, your yearly business expenses, an estimated tax rate, how many weeks off you want for holidays and sickness, your working hours per week and the share of those hours that are actually billable. It calculates the gross revenue you need, your real billable hours a year, and the minimum hourly rate and day rate that gets you there. Add a profit or buffer margin for quiet months, and see what a typical project of a given number of hours should cost. A comparison line shows what the naive "salary ÷ 2,080" rate would have been, so you can see how much you'd have been undercharging. Use it for design, development, writing, consulting or any service work. It runs in your browser in five currencies.
Your numbers
How it works
- Revenue needed = (take-home ÷ (1 − tax rate) + expenses) × (1 + buffer).
- Billable hours = (52 − weeks off) × hours per week × billable %.
- Hourly rate = revenue ÷ billable hours. Day rate = hourly × hours per day.
FAQ
What billable percentage is realistic?
Many freelancers bill 50–70% of working time; the rest goes to admin, sales and learning.
Should I charge hourly or per project?
Use the hourly rate as your floor, then price projects by value and estimated hours.
Is the tax rate exact?
No. Use your effective rate as an estimate, and check with an accountant.
Is my data stored?
No. Nothing leaves your browser.
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