Freelance Rate Calculator

Most freelance rate advice works forward: pick a number that sounds reasonable and hope it covers the bills. This calculator works backward instead, starting from the one number that actually matters — the annual net income you want to take home — and solving for the rate that gets you there once overhead, taxes and realistic booking rates are accounted for.

The first step is grossing up: required revenue = desired net income ÷ (1 − overhead% − tax reserve%). If you want to keep 60,000 after setting aside 15% for software, insurance and equipment and 25% for a self-employment tax reserve, you need to bill 60,000 ÷ (1 − 0.15 − 0.25) = 60,000 ÷ 0.60 = 100,000 in revenue — not 60,000. Skipping this step is the single most common reason freelance rates come in too low.

The second step is the one full-time employment doesn't force you to think about: not every working day is billable. Out of roughly 260 working days a year, subtract vacation, sick days and time spent on admin and marketing to get your billable days, then divide the required revenue by that number for the rate at 100% utilization. But 100% utilization is unrealistic — most independents book somewhere between 50% and 80% of their billable capacity — so the calculator also divides by billable days times your entered utilization percentage, which is the rate you actually need to charge to hit your target given how much of your calendar you expect to sell. The gap between the two numbers is usually larger than people expect.

Because the utilization discount compounds with the overhead-and-tax markup, a small sensitivity table shows the day and hourly rate at 100%, 70% and 50% utilization side by side, so you can see exactly how much a slower quarter would need to be offset by a higher rate. Every number is a plain figure with no currency attached, every formula is shown with your own inputs substituted in, and the entire calculation runs locally in your browser.