Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

Calculate your minimum freelance hourly rate free online based on desired income, billable hours, and business expenses. Stop underpricing your work with real numbers.

Desired Annual Income

Annual Business Expenses

Weeks Worked / Year

Billable Hours / Week

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How to Use This Tool

Enter your income target and expensesWhat you want to take home, plus what your business costs

Enter realistic weeks and billable hoursNot your total available hours -- actual billable time

See your minimum hourly rateThe floor needed to hit your real targets

Total Hours Available Isn't the Same as Billable Hours

The single biggest mistake in freelance rate-setting is dividing a target income by total working hours rather than actually billable hours. Time spent on proposals, admin, marketing, and the inevitable gaps between projects doesn't generate revenue, but it does consume real working time -- ignoring this systematically underprices freelance work.

Expenses Belong on Top of Income, Not Subtracted From It

Software, equipment, insurance, and self-employment tax all need to be covered by your rate before any of it becomes actual take-home income. This calculator adds your business expenses to your income target first, then divides by realistic billable hours, ensuring the resulting rate genuinely covers both your living costs and your business costs.

This Is a Floor, Not a Target

The output represents the minimum rate needed to hit your stated goals given realistic billable hours -- not necessarily what the market will bear or what your specific expertise commands. Use it as a sanity check against underpricing, while still researching what comparable freelancers in your field and experience level actually charge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Freelancers don't bill 100% of their working hours -- time goes to admin, marketing, unpaid pitching, and breaks between projects. Using total work hours rather than actual billable hours systematically underestimates the rate needed to hit a real income target.

Commonly cited estimates range from 50-75% of total working hours actually being billable, depending on how much time goes to client acquisition, administration, and non-billable work. New freelancers often see a lower percentage than established ones with a steady client base.

Yes -- software subscriptions, equipment, insurance, taxes (often higher for self-employed individuals), and any other business costs need to be covered by your rate, not subtracted from your desired take-home pay. This calculator adds expenses to the income target before dividing by billable hours.

A salaried position includes employer-paid benefits, payroll taxes, and guaranteed hours that a freelance rate needs to self-fund entirely, on top of typically having significantly fewer actually billable hours than a full-time employee's scheduled hours.

This calculates your minimum viable rate to hit your income target after expenses, given your realistic billable hours. Market rates, competition, and your specific value proposition might support charging more, but charging less than this minimum risks not meeting your actual financial needs.