Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Enter your income goal, expenses and working schedule to get a sustainable hourly rate — one that accounts for taxes, time off, and the time you spend on work you can't bill for.
Recommended hourly rate
$76.53
Includes a 10% safety margin over the minimum rate.
Minimum hourly rate
$69.57
Break-even — covers your target income, taxes and expenses.
Required annual revenue
$93,500.00
Estimated billable hours
1344h 0m
Per year, at your billable percentage.
What is a freelance hourly rate?
A freelance hourly rate isn't just your target salary divided by the hours in a year. It has to cover the income you actually want to take home, the tax you'll owe on it, your business expenses, and the reality that not every working hour is billable — some of your time goes to admin, proposals, and finding the next client.
How to calculate your hourly rate
Start with the annual income you want, then add a reserve for taxes and your yearly business expenses — that total is the revenue your rate needs to generate. Next, work out how many hours you can realistically bill in a year: subtract vacation and sick time from 52 weeks, multiply by your working days and hours per week, then apply your billable percentage. Dividing required revenue by billable hours gives you a minimum rate; this calculator adds a safety margin on top of that for you automatically.
What is billable utilization?
Billable utilization is the share of your total working time that you can actually invoice to clients. Time spent on proposals, admin, marketing, or unpaid revisions doesn't count. A newer freelancer juggling their own marketing might be billable 40–50% of the time, while someone with a steady client base might reach 75–80%.
Example calculation
A freelancer wants to take home $60,000, keeps a 25% tax reserve, and has $5,000 in annual expenses — a required revenue of $80,000. With 10 vacation days, 5 sick days, a 5-day work week, 8-hour days, and 75% billable utilization, they have about 1,470 billable hours in the year. That puts their minimum hourly rate at roughly $54, and their recommended rate — with a safety margin — at around $60.
Common pricing mistakes
- Basing a rate on a full 2,080-hour work year, without subtracting time off or non-billable work.
- Forgetting to reserve for taxes until the bill arrives.
- Ignoring business expenses that a salaried job would have covered for you.
- Setting a rate once and never revisiting it as expenses or goals change.