How much should you charge per hour as a freelancer?
There is no universal "right" rate — and copying whatever a competitor charges is the fastest way to underprice yourself. Your rate has to cover three things beginners forget: the income you actually want to take home, the weeks of the year you don't work, and the tax you'll owe with no employer withholding it. This calculator works backwards from those real numbers so the figure you land on is one you can actually live on.
How to use this calculator
- Enter your target take-home income — the money you want left in your pocket after costs and tax.
- Add your annual business expenses (software, hardware, insurance, subscriptions).
- Enter your billable hours per week — be honest; this is the number that trips everyone up.
- Set your weeks off for holidays, sickness, and slow periods.
- Add a tax set-aside percentage so the rate survives tax season.
The math behind it
Annual billable hours = (52 − weeks off) × billable hours per week. Required gross = (target income + expenses) ÷ (1 − tax rate). Hourly rate = required gross ÷ annual billable hours. In plain English: work out how many hours you can realistically sell in a year, then divide everything you need to earn by that number.
A worked example
Say you want to take home $60,000, you have $6,000 of expenses, you set aside 25% for tax, you can bill 25 hours a week, and you take 6 weeks off. Here's how the calculator gets to a rate:
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Target take-home income | $60,000 |
| Business expenses | $6,000 |
| Tax set-aside | 25% |
| Annual billable hours (46 weeks × 25 hrs) | 1,150 |
| Gross you must invoice ($66,000 ÷ 0.75) | $88,000 |
| Hourly rate ($88,000 ÷ 1,150) | ≈ $77/hr |
Notice how a "$60k lifestyle" needs a rate near $77 an hour — not $30 — once unpaid weeks, expenses, and tax are accounted for. That gap is exactly why so many freelancers feel busy but broke.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Overestimating billable hours. A 40-hour week almost never means 40 billable hours — sales, email, invoicing, and learning are all unpaid. Many full-time freelancers bill only 20–28 hours a week, which is exactly why a freelance rate has to be much higher than an employee's "salary ÷ 2,080" equivalent just to break even. If you're not sure whether your current number is too low, the warning signs are in am I charging too little?
Why a freelance rate isn't your old salary ÷ 2,080
When you were employed, your employer quietly covered paid holidays, equipment, software, and roughly half of your payroll tax. A freelancer's rate has to absorb every one of those. So taking your old $60,000 salary, dividing by 2,080 working hours to get ~$29, and charging that is a steep pay cut in disguise — you'd be working for less than you earned as an employee, with none of the safety net. A sustainable freelance rate is commonly 1.5–2× that naive figure.
What's a "good" hourly rate for a freelancer?
The honest answer is that it varies enormously by field, experience, and country, so any single number you read online is close to meaningless for your situation. A more useful approach: calculate your floor with the tool above, sanity-check it against the mid-range for your field (never the cheapest), and then price upward based on the value of the result. When you're ready to move an existing rate up, see how to raise your freelance rates and model the impact with the Rate-Raise Impact Calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I charge per hour as a freelancer? There's no universal number — it depends on your income goal, costs, tax, and realistic billable hours. Your rate is the gross you need to invoice divided by your annual billable hours; the calculator above does it for you.
Is my freelance rate just my old salary ÷ 2,080? No — that ignores expenses, unpaid time, and self-employment tax. A sustainable freelance rate is often 1.5–2× that naive number.
How many hours can a freelancer actually bill per week? Often only 20–28 for full-timers; the rest goes to sales, admin, and learning. Be honest about this — it's the input that matters most.
Should I charge hourly or per project? Use this rate as your internal benchmark even when quoting fixed prices. For when each model wins, see hourly vs fixed-price and our guide to quoting a project.
How much should I set aside for tax? A rough rule is 25–30% of income, depending on where you live. Estimate yours with the Tax Set-Aside Calculator.
What if my calculated rate seems too high to win work? It's your floor — charging below it loses money on every hour. The fix is usually better positioning and clients who value the result, not a lower price.