Freelance rate calculator: what hourly rate to charge

How to use the freelance rate calculator

1. Income you want a year. What you want to pay yourself, before personal income tax.
2. Business costs. Type what you spend on the work, a year or a month for each line. Rename or add rows for anything else, such as travel, training or health cover.
3. Your time. Weeks off for holidays and sickness, the hours you work in a week, the share of those hours you can bill, and how many hours make a billed day.
4. Set aside for tax is optional. If you type a share, the income box becomes what you keep after that set-aside, and the rate goes up to cover it.

The result shows the hourly rate, a day rate, what you need to bill in a working week and in an average month, and a table of rates at other billable shares.

How much should I charge per hour freelance?

Work out what the year has to bring in, then share it over the hours a client will actually pay for:

1. Working weeks = 52 - weeks off.
2. Billable hours = working weeks x hours a week x billable share.
3. To bill a year = income you want + business costs.
4. Hourly rate = to bill a year / billable hours.

Here is the example the Try an example button fills in:

The costs are software $600, equipment $1,200, insurance $900 and an accountant $1,500 a year, plus a $150 a month workspace. The day rate is worked from the exact hourly rate, so it can differ by a few cents from the rounded rate times 8.

Billable hours: why you cannot bill every hour

A freelancer's week includes work nobody pays for: finding clients, quotes, emails, invoicing, bookkeeping and keeping skills current. The billable share is the part of your hours you can charge for. There is no official figure for it, so 65% is filled in only as a starting point. Track your own hours for a few weeks and use your real share.

The share changes the rate more than anything else. For the same $66,000 a year and 46 weeks of 40 hours:

Charging $35.87 because it covers a full 40 hour week only works if every working hour is paid for, which is rare.

Freelance day rate calculator

Many contractors quote by the day. The day rate here is the hourly rate times the billed hours in a day, which you set (8 is filled in; use 7 or 7.5 if that is your client's working day). The calculator also shows what you need to bill in a working week (the year's total divided by working weeks) and in an average month (the year's total divided by 12). A month with a holiday in it will bill less, and a full month more.

Self employed rate calculator: what about tax?

The calculator does not work out US self-employment tax or UK National Insurance, or income tax. Each depends on your profit for the whole year, thresholds, your other income and the expenses you can claim, so one fixed percentage would be wrong for many people.

• United States. The IRS describes self-employment tax as Social Security and Medicare taxes, and states: The self-employment tax rate is 15.3%. It applies when net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more, and income tax comes on top.
• United Kingdom. GOV.UK says: If your profits are more than £12,570 a year, you must pay Class 4 contributions. and Most people pay Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance through Self Assessment. Income Tax is paid on profits as well.

If you know roughly what share to keep aside, for example from last year's bill or from your accountant, type it in Set aside for tax. With 25% set aside, the $60,000 example becomes $80,000 of pay before tax ($60,000 / 0.75), $86,000 to bill and $71.91 an hour.

Freelance rate calculator UK

The calculator shows pounds for UK English browsers, and the arithmetic is the same. When you set weeks off, remember that employees get paid holiday and you do not: GOV.UK says almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year. In the US, the Department of Labor notes the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations, so paid time off there comes from the employer. Either way, as a freelancer every week off is unpaid, so it belongs in the weeks off box, and the rate has to cover it.

Freelance rate vs salary

Under the results, the calculator compares your rate with an employee's hourly pay for the same yearly amount over 52 paid weeks. In the example, $60,000 for 40 hours a week is $28.85 an hour, so the freelance rate of $55.18 is 1.91 times as much. The gap pays for your own costs, your unpaid weeks and the hours you cannot bill. To turn a salary into an hourly figure the other way round, use the hourly to salary calculator.

From a rate to a price

For fixed-price work, estimate the hours and multiply by your rate, with some room for changes. If you resell materials or another freelancer's work, the markup calculator shows the price for the markup or margin you want. When the job is done, the invoice generator makes an invoice in your browser.

In Excel or Google Sheets

With the income in A2, yearly costs in B2, weeks off in C2, hours a week in D2 and the billable share as a percentage in E2 (65%), the hourly rate is:

=(A2+B2)/((52-C2)*D2*E2)

Multiply by the hours in a day for the day rate. If E2 holds 65 rather than 65%, divide it by 100 in the formula.

Questions and answers

Sources

Checked on 13 October 2026. If a rule has changed, please tell us.

• IRS: Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes)
• GOV.UK: Self-employed National Insurance rates
• GOV.UK: Holiday entitlement
• U.S. Department of Labor: Vacation leave