How to use this freelance rate calculator
This free freelance rate calculator works out the hourly and day rate you actually need to hit the income you want. Enter the take-home pay you're aiming for, a rough tax set-aside, your business expenses and self-funded benefits, and the hours you can realistically bill — and it returns your rate, your day rate, and the yearly revenue that rate implies. No signup, and every formula is shown above so you can check the math.
People reach it searching for a freelance rate calculator, a freelance wage or pay calculator, or a freelance pricing calculator. They're all the same question: what should I charge? The honest answer usually surprises people, because a sustainable rate has to cover far more than a salary did.
Why your freelance rate isn't your old salary ÷ 2080
The most common way freelancers set a rate is to take a salary they'd be happy with and divide by 2,080 (40 hours × 52 weeks). It feels reasonable, and it's almost always too low.
A salaried job quietly paid for a lot that never appeared on your offer letter: the employer's half of payroll taxes, health insurance, a retirement match, paid time off, equipment, and software. It also paid you for plenty of hours you weren't directly producing. As a freelancer, every one of those costs is now yours, and only the hours a client agrees to pay for bring in money. Dividing a salary by 2,080 ignores all of it.
What this calculator accounts for
- Your take-home pay — the money you actually want to keep after tax.
- Taxes — grossed up from your take-home, since self-employment means paying both halves of Social Security and Medicare on top of income tax.
- Self-funded benefits — health insurance, retirement, and anything else a job used to cover.
- Business expenses — software, hardware, subscriptions, and fees.
- Unpaid time — by dividing only by billable hours, the admin, sales, and email that never bill are already priced in.
- A profit cushion — a margin for slow months and surprises.
A worked example
Say you want to take home $70,000 after tax, set aside 28% for tax, spend $4,000 a year on expenses, self-fund $12,000 in benefits, add a 10% cushion, and can bill 25 hours a week for 48 weeks:
| Take-home target | $70,000 |
| Grossed up for tax (÷ 0.72) | $97,222 |
| + Expenses and benefits | $16,000 |
| + 10% cushion | $11,322 |
| Revenue needed | $124,544 |
| ÷ 1,200 billable hours | ~$104 / hour |
That's roughly $104 an hour — more than double the ~$47 you'd get from dividing $97k by 2,080. The gap is everything a job used to absorb. Change any number above to see your own figure.
How many hours can you actually bill?
The single biggest mistake is assuming you'll bill 40 hours a week. Almost no freelancer does. Between finding work, scoping, admin, and gaps between projects, 20–30 genuinely billable hours a week is realistic for most solo workers. The fewer hours you can bill, the higher each one has to be priced to reach the same income — which is why undercharging hurts most when you're busiest with unpaid work.
Frequently asked questions
Keep going
How to set your freelance hourly rate · Leaving a salary: what to charge · Pricing a fixed-bid project · Setting a day rate