Free calculator
Freelance Rate Calculator
Enter your income goal, expenses, taxes, and realistic billable hours. We calculate the minimum sustainable rate to hit your target — hourly, daily, and per project.
What you want to keep after tax.
Software, insurance, equipment, etc.
25–35% is typical for US freelancers.
For growth, savings, and slow months.
Most freelancers bill 20–30, not 40.
Subtract vacation and slow periods.
Used to estimate a fixed-price project quote.
Your minimum sustainable rate
Hourly rate
$121
Day rate (8h)
$968
Weekly
$3,026
Monthly
$12,102
Project (40h)
$4,841
Based on 1,200 billable hours a year and $145,229 of revenue needed. This is a floor — your portfolio, niche, and demand can push real rates higher.
How the freelance rate calculator works
The calculator works backwards from the income you want to keep. It grosses your target take-home up for taxes, adds the real cost of running your business, layers on a margin for growth and slow months, and divides the total by the hours you can actually bill. That gives you a rate that covers everything an employer would normally absorb — benefits, downtime, overhead — instead of just your salary.
What counts as a business expense?
Software subscriptions, hardware, insurance (liability, health, disability), your website and portfolio, marketing, professional development, accounting and legal fees, and a share of your workspace and utilities. Most full-time freelancers land somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 a year once everything is counted.
From rate to invoice
Once you know your rate, the next step is putting it on a clean invoice. Use our free invoice generator to bill a client in minutes, or browse invoice templates for your industry.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Start with your target take-home income, gross it up for taxes, add your annual business expenses, and add a profit or buffer margin. Divide that total by your realistic billable hours for the year (billable hours per week times working weeks). The result is the minimum hourly rate that keeps your business sustainable.
Most full-time freelancers only bill 20–30 hours a week. The rest goes to admin, invoicing, proposals, marketing, and client communication. Pricing as if you bill 40 hours leaves you short, which is why this calculator uses billable hours rather than working hours.
For US freelancers, 25–35% is a common effective rate once you include self-employment tax plus federal and state income tax. Use a lower number if you have heavy deductions and a higher number for higher income or high-tax states. For a detailed estimate, use our self-employment tax calculator.
Treat the result as your floor — the rate below which the work isn't worth it. Your actual quoted rate can be higher based on your experience, niche, demand, and the value you deliver. Many freelancers add a project risk buffer of 15–25% on top for fixed-price work.
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server or saved.
More free tools
No signup, no watermark — just utilities for running your business.
Self-Employment Tax Calculator
Estimate your US self-employment tax and how much to set aside each quarter.
Open toolProfit Margin & Markup Calculator
Turn cost and price into margin, markup, and profit instantly.
Open toolSalary to Hourly Calculator
Convert an annual salary to an hourly rate — and back again.
Open toolDo this — and everything after it — in Agiled
Agiled turns one-off documents into a repeatable workflow: clients, invoices, contracts, e-signatures, payments, and projects in one place. Free plan, no card required.