Freelance hourly rate calculator

Work backwards from the salary you want. Only billable hours earn money, so the rate has to cover your whole year, including the time spent on admin, marketing and unpaid work. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

Salary you want ($ a year) Yearly business costs ($) Working weeks a year Billable hours a week Profit margin % (optional)

Billable hours are the hours a client pays for. Count your own week honestly: emails, editing you do not charge for, marketing and bookkeeping are not billable. The rate is rounded to the cent before yearly revenue is worked out. Taxes are not included.

How it works

Billable hours per year = weeks × billable hours a week. Break-even rate = (salary + costs) ÷ billable hours per year. Rate with profit = break-even rate ÷ (1 − margin).

Worked example (the values above): 46 weeks × 25 billable hours is 1,150 hours a year. A $50,000 salary plus $9,000 of business costs is $59,000, so the break-even rate is $59,000 ÷ 1,150 = $51.30 an hour. For a 10% margin: $51.30 ÷ 0.90 = $57.00 an hour (using the unrounded break-even rate). At $57.00 for 1,150 hours you bring in $65,550.00, which is $6,550.00 more than salary and costs.

If you quote by the session or the day rather than the hour, compare the two with the day rate vs hourly calculator. See also all calculators.