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.
How to use it
- Enter your target take-home income — the money you want left in your pocket.
- 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/week. Required gross = (target income + expenses) ÷ (1 − tax rate). Hourly rate = required gross ÷ annual billable hours. In plain English: figure out how many hours you can realistically sell in a year, then divide everything you need to earn by that number.
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.
Quick questions
Is my freelance rate just my old salary ÷ 2,080? No — that ignores expenses, unpaid time, and self-employment tax. A useful freelance rate is often 1.5–2× that naive number.
Should I charge hourly or per project? Use this rate as your internal benchmark even if you quote fixed prices — it tells you whether a project is worth your time. Learn more in our guide to quoting a project.