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Enter your values and press Calculate.
The calculator adds your desired annual salary to your annual business expenses, then divides by the hours you can actually bill, billable hours per week times working weeks per year. The result is the minimum hourly rate that covers your income goal and costs. These are planning estimates, not financial advice, taxes, benefits and market rates all shift the real number.
Most freelancers undercharge because they divide by the wrong hours. The honest formula: hourly rate = (desired salary + annual business expenses) ÷ (billable hours per week × working weeks per year).
Worked example, a $60,000 income goal plus $5,000 of expenses, billing 30 hours a week for 48 weeks: $65,000 ÷ 1,440 billable hours = $45.14 per hour. That is the floor, before taxes and buffers.
Compare the classic mistake: $60,000 ÷ 2,080 (a salaried year) gives $28.85 an hour, a rate that quietly loses money every single week.
Enter your currency, the annual salary you want to earn, the hours per week clients actually pay you for, the weeks you will work (leave room for holidays and gaps between contracts), and your yearly business expenses.
Click Calculate to get your required hourly rate and the annual revenue target behind it. Then sanity-check it against what clients in your field and experience level actually pay, your floor and your market rate are both real constraints.
A 40-hour work week does not mean 40 billable hours. Pitching, proposals, invoicing, admin, email and unpaid revisions typically eat 40–50% of a freelancer's time, most established freelancers bill 20–30 hours a week even working full time.
Over a year that is roughly 1,000–1,500 billable hours, not 2,080. Enter the honest number: charging $45 an hour at 30 billable hours a week covers far more than $30 an hour at a fictional 40.
Employees never think about these; freelancers must price them in. Self-employment tax, income tax, health insurance, retirement contributions and unpaid time off all come out of your rate, many freelancers add a 25–30% tax buffer on top of the formula's floor.
Business expenses means the real overhead: software, equipment, insurance, accountant, coworking, marketing. Underestimating expenses is the second most common reason rates come out too low.
Hourly billing is the baseline the calculator gives you. A day rate is simply your hourly rate times a billable day (often 7–8 hours). Project pricing starts from hours times rate, then adds a 15–25% buffer for revisions and scope creep, and rewards you for getting faster.
Value-based pricing goes further: charge for the value delivered, not the hours spent. If your work saves a client $50,000, charging $5,000 is reasonable even for 20 hours of work, experienced freelancers routinely earn far more this way than on hourly billing.
Enough that your billable hours cover your income goal, expenses and taxes. Add desired salary plus expenses, divide by realistic billable hours (about 1,000–1,500 a year). The calculator above does the math, then compare the floor with market rates for your experience.
Take the salary, divide by about 1,000 billable hours (not 2,080), then multiply by roughly 1.3 to cover taxes, benefits and overhead. A $60,000 salary converts to about $78 an hour by that shortcut, the rate converter above gives a more precise figure from your own inputs.
Most freelancers land between 1,000 and 1,500 billable hours a year: 20–25 billable hours a week over 46–50 working weeks. The rest of the week goes to selling, admin, invoicing and learning, hours nobody pays for directly.
Software and tools, equipment and its replacement, insurance, accountant or bookkeeper fees, coworking or home-office costs, marketing, and professional development. Add health cover and pension contributions here if you fund them yourself.
Hourly is the honest baseline; pricing freelance projects builds on it with a 15–25% buffer for revisions and back-and-forth. Many freelancers prefer project prices because clients like certainty, and because finishing faster raises your effective hourly rate.
Raise rates when demand is strong, your skills or results clearly exceed your old price, or costs rise. Test higher rates with new clients first, a 10–20% increase usually meets little resistance, and give existing clients a month or two of notice.
Value-based pricing charges for the outcome delivered rather than the time spent. A project that saves a client $50,000 can fairly be priced at $5,000–$15,000 even if it takes 20 hours. It typically earns experienced freelancers several times more than hourly billing.
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