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Freelance Rate Calculator
Stop guessing your rate. Work backward from the take-home you actually want, through the taxes, overhead, and non-billable time that quietly force it up, to the hourly rate that funds your goals.
- No email required
- Runs in your browser
- Downloadable rate card
You should charge at least
The minimum that funds your take-home, costs, taxes, and profit buffer.
- Billable hrs / year
- 1,104
- Revenue to bill
- $127,407
- Billable hrs / week
- 24
- Raise needed
- +$30/hr
Where each billed dollar goes
- Your take-home$80,000
- Taxes$26,667
- Business costs$8,000
- Profit buffer$12,741
Your rate vs. how much you can bill
| Billable | Rate you'd need |
|---|---|
| 40% | $173/hr |
| 50% | $138/hr |
| 60%you | $115/hr |
| 70% | $99/hr |
| 80% | $87/hr |
| 90% | $77/hr |
You're charging below what your goals need
At $85/hr you'd net about $57,342 take-home, short of your $80,000 target. You need $115/hr, a $30/hr raise.
Treat this as your floor
$115/hr (about $923/day) is the minimum that funds your goals. Quote above it for clients that need more hand-holding, never below.
Nothing is uploaded. Every number stays in your browser.
How your rate is built
Your rate isn't your income divided by your hours.
That's the mistake that keeps freelancers underpaid. The real number has to survive five things most rate calculators ignore.
Billable utilization
The share of your hours you can actually invoice.
The number that quietly sets your rate. If only 60% of your working hours are billable, the other 40% (sales, admin, learning) has to be paid for by the 60%. Assume 100% and your rate will be far too low.
Non-billable time
Everything you do that no client pays for.
Proposals, invoicing, email, bookkeeping, marketing, upskilling. It's real work and real hours. A rate that ignores it means you're working those hours for free.
Overhead
The cost of simply being in business.
Software, hardware, insurance, subscriptions, a co-working desk. Your rate has to cover all of it before a single dollar reaches your pocket.
Taxes
The bite between revenue and take-home.
Freelancers pay their own tax, and it's the most common thing left out of a rate. We back into a pre-tax number so the rate actually leaves you the take-home you set.
Profit buffer
Margin above just breaking even.
A healthy business isn't run at cost. A profit buffer is your cushion for slow months, reinvestment, and the raise you'll eventually give yourself.
Floor, not ceiling
The rate is a minimum to build up from.
The number here is the least you can charge and still hit your goals. Demanding clients, rush work, and specialized skills should push the quote up, never below the floor.
The math
Exactly how the rate is worked out.
hours per week × (52 − weeks off) × billable % target take-home ÷ (1 − tax rate) (pre-tax income + business costs) ÷ (1 − profit buffer) revenue to bill ÷ billable hours per year hourly rate × 8 billable hours The rate is a floor. It's the least you can charge and still hit your income, cover your costs, and keep a profit buffer. Quote above it, never below.
Knowing your rate is step one. Hitting it is the hard part.
FeatureFlight tracks your budgets and profit as you work, so you can see exactly what you are earning, project by project.
Just finished a project? Check what it really made you.
- Project budget and timeline projections in real time
- Budgets and time in one place
- Profit per project, per client, per person
- AI flags a project drifting below your rate
Questions
Freelance pricing, explained.
How do I calculate my freelance hourly rate?
Start from the annual take-home pay you want, then add everything that sits between it and your invoices: taxes, business expenses, and a profit buffer. Divide that total by your billable hours per year, meaning your working hours minus time off, multiplied by the share of hours you can actually bill. The result is the hourly rate that funds your goals. This calculator does all of that, including the utilization math most freelancers skip.
What is a good hourly rate for a freelancer?
There's no universal number. It depends on your target income, your costs, your tax rate, and how much of your time is billable. The right way to find yours is to work backward from the life you want rather than copying someone else's rate. As a sanity check: if your calculated rate feels high, it's usually because your billable utilization is lower than you assumed, which is normal.
Why is my real rate lower than the rate I quote?
Because you don't bill every hour you work. Time spent on sales, proposals, admin, and learning is unpaid, so your effective rate (total income divided by all hours worked) is always lower than your quoted rate. If you bill 60% of your hours, your effective rate is roughly 60% of what you charge. That's exactly why your quoted rate needs to account for utilization.
Should I charge hourly or a day rate?
Either works, and the underlying math is the same. This tool shows both an hourly rate and a day rate (hourly × 8 billable hours). Day rates are common for on-site or full-day engagements; hourly suits smaller, variable tasks. Many freelancers move to fixed project fees over time, but they still price those fees off a reliable hourly rate.
How much should I set aside for taxes?
It varies by country and income, but many freelancers set aside somewhere between 20% and 35% of income for tax. Enter your own effective rate in the calculator and it will raise your required rate so that, after tax, you're left with the take-home you actually want. If you're unsure of your exact rate, a conservative estimate is safer than none.
Is the calculator free, and is my data private?
It's completely free with no signup, and every calculation runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you enter is uploaded or stored. Download your rate card as a PDF or spreadsheet, generated locally on your device. It's built by FeatureFlight, the all-in-one platform agencies and freelancers use to track time, budgets, and profitability for real.
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