Freelance hourly rate calculator
Work out what to charge per hour from your own numbers: what you need to live on, how many hours actually get paid, tax and a safety margin. No sign-up.
Three mistakes that pull your income down
1. Rounded-up hours. It feels like you can sell 160 hours a month, as in a job. In practice, 80–100 is a good benchmark. Every extra hour in the calculation pulls your rate down.
2. Forgotten prep time. Briefs, emails, calls, finding clients — work nobody pays for directly. If it takes a fifth of your time, the rate goes up by a quarter. If it takes half, it doubles.
3. Tax and profit left out. A rate that only covers living costs leaves you at zero by the end of the year. Tax comes on top, and the margin is what you actually earn — what's left once every bill is paid.
Working out your rate is half the job
The calculator tells you what to charge. The timer shows what you actually get: how many hours you worked today, how many of them are paid, and how much is left until your daily target.
A rate without tracked hours is a promise to yourself that nobody checks.
Five of your numbers, not someone else's median
Going by someone else's rate makes no sense: it's built from someone else's life — another city, another tax, another share of paid hours. Yours comes from five numbers, and all of them are about you.
- What you need per year. Your living budget, take-home, after tax. Other steady income is subtracted: hourly work doesn't have to cover it.
- How many hours actually sell. Not hours at your desk — hours on an invoice. Minus the months you don't work: holidays, sick days, time to breathe.
- Unpaid time. Emails, sales, revisions beyond what was agreed. Paid hours have to cover that too.
- Tax. The rate builds it in — otherwise you pay it out of your own pocket.
- Margin. On top of costs: a cushion for when a client vanishes or a project falls through.
Common questions
It came out higher than what I charge. Is that a mistake?
Probably not. It's the gap between the rate you charge out of habit and the rate your numbers call for. Give it a chance: don't drop it at the first «that's expensive». What to do about the gap — see how to raise your rate.
Why is it pointless to ask what others charge?
Someone else's median knows nothing about your life, your tax or your hours. Two people with the same rate earn very differently if one gets 100 paid hours a month and the other 50. First, work out what you need. That is the answer to a client's «why so much?». More in what others earn.
How many hours a month should I enter?
As many as you actually invoice. If you don't know, that's the biggest hole in the calculation: without tracking hours, any rate stays a guess.
How do I name this rate to a client?
Not as a range, but as a menu of a few ways to do the work. How to put one together — see a menu instead of a range.
And what do I actually earn per hour?
It only shows up in logged hours: a fixed-price project with overtime quietly cuts your rate in half. Three out of four people who calculated their rate with us found their current one was below what they need — by a third on average. How it's counted — see income and real rate.
Rate, hours and projects in one place
A minute on how it works day to day.
Next: The method, The timer, Real rate, All guides.