Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator: What to Charge per Hour, Day and Project

This freelance rate calculator does the math most people skip before naming a price: how much you need to bill to take home what you want, after expenses, taxes and the hours you work for free. It gives you an hourly rate, a day rate for 8 hours and a project price, and shows what you’re losing if you’re undercharging today.

How to use the freelance hourly rate calculator

1. Enter what you want to earn

   Done

   In “Take-home pay you want per year,” put what you want to keep after taxes. Below it, your business expenses: software, equipment, coworking, accountant and insurance.

2. Add your tax rate

   Done

   It’s the share of your profit that goes to taxes, self-employment tax included. It depends on where you live and how your business is set up, so the calculator assumes nothing. If you’re not sure, ask your accountant.

3. Count your real time

   Done

   Weeks of vacation, days off (holidays and sick days), days and hours you work per week and, most of all, the share of those hours that are billable.

4. Compare with your current rate

   Done

   Enter what you charge today and the hours in a typical project. You’ll see the gap per hour and what it adds up to over a year.

How to calculate hourly rate as a freelancer

Your freelance hourly rate is the revenue you need divided by the hours you can bill. Revenue you need is your take-home pay, plus the taxes on your profit, plus expenses:

Revenue = take-home ÷ (1 − tax rate) + expenses

Billable hours = (52 − vacation weeks − days off ÷ days per week) × hours per week × billable share

Hourly rate = revenue ÷ billable hours

The catch is the billable share. Between finding clients, writing proposals, invoicing, email and learning, a big chunk of your week isn’t paid by anyone. A generic hourly rate calculator that only converts a salary ignores that. If you want those hours to work harder, start with what a lead is and how to measure it so finding clients doesn’t eat half your week.

Example: what to charge to take home $60,000

These are the numbers the calculator loads. They’re a practice example, not an average of anything:

Input	Value
Take-home pay you want	$60,000
Business expenses	$6,000
Taxes	30% of profit
Time	3 weeks of vacation, 10 days off, 5 days and 40 hours a week
Billable hours	65%
Revenue needed	$91,714
Hourly rate	$75.05
Day rate (8 h)	$600.42
20-hour project	$1,501

You work 1,880 hours a year but bill only 1,222. The other 658 get paid inside your rate, or they don’t get paid at all. Out of every $100 you bill, $65.42 is yours, $28.04 goes to taxes and $6.54 to expenses. If you charge $50 an hour today, you’re leaving $25.05 an hour on the table: about $30,614 a year.

Hourly, day rate or project pricing

The same hourly rate gives you three ways to quote. Hourly fits retainers and open-ended consulting. A day rate fits workshops, shoots and on-site days, which is why this doubles as a day rate calculator. Project pricing fits work where the result is worth more than your time: the calculator gives you the floor and you set the ceiling. Consultants and contractors use the same logic, so this also works as a consultant rate calculator or a contractor rate calculator.

Looking at other people’s freelance rates tells you where the market sits, not what you should charge. Once clients are coming in, see which channel brings them with the ROI calculator, and grab more free tools for your day-to-day.

How much to charge for a website as a freelancer

There is no flat price for a website, but there is a method that keeps you from giving hours away. Estimate the hours for each phase, multiply them by your minimum rate and add a buffer for revision rounds. Say a five-page business site takes you 40 hours (an assumption, so swap in your own). At the calculator’s $75.05 an hour, the work comes to $3,002. With a 20% buffer, you land at about $3,600.

That number is your floor, not your price. If the site will bring a dental practice or a shop real customers, quote above it, based on what it earns them. Put two revision rounds in writing, bill hosting and plugins separately, and ask for 50% up front, 25% at design sign-off and 25% at launch. If you speed up with a website built with AI, your hours drop, but the value of the site to the client does not.

Retainer pricing: how to set a monthly retainer fee

Retainer pricing means a client pays you a fixed fee every month for an agreed scope, instead of paying project by project. Build it from your rate: hours included per month times your hourly rate. With the calculator’s $75.05, 20 hours a month comes to $1,501, or about $18,000 a year of predictable income.

Then pick the type that fits the work:

• Hours bank: 20 hours a month, with unused hours expiring or rolling over once.
• Deliverables: 12 posts and one report, whatever time they take.
• Availability: a reserved slot each week for calls and fast replies.

Whichever you choose, write down what is included and what bills extra, charge on the 1st of the month in advance, and set a three-month minimum with 30 days’ notice. A small discount of 5% to 10% for committing is reasonable. Unlimited hours never are.

Frequently asked questions about freelance rates

01

How much should a freelancer charge per hour?

Enough to cover the life you want and the business you run, divided by the hours you can actually bill. Not your old salary and not your competitor’s number: copy someone else’s rate and you copy their expenses and their clients too. Work out your floor with the calculator, then go up from there based on your experience, how urgent the job is and the value you create.

02

How can I calculate my freelance rate based on my salary?

Don’t just divide your salary by 2,080 hours. As an employee, your company paid part of your taxes, your equipment and your time off, and every hour at your desk was paid. Enter your old take-home pay as the income you want, add your business expenses and your tax rate, and set billable hours honestly. The rate that comes out is usually much higher than your old salary divided by hours.

03

How do you calculate an hourly rate?

Divide the revenue you need by the hours you can bill. Revenue needed is your take-home pay grossed up for taxes, plus business expenses. Billable hours are the weeks you work, times hours per week, times the share of that time clients pay for. With the calculator’s sample numbers, $91,714 over 1,222 billable hours comes to $75.05 an hour.

04

How do I factor taxes into my freelance rate?

Gross up your take-home pay before you do anything else: divide what you want to keep by one minus your tax rate. In the US, the IRS says self-employed people generally pay self-employment tax on top of income tax and make estimated payments during the year, so nobody is withholding for you. Ask your accountant for your effective rate, enter it in “Taxes,” and the calculator handles the rest.

05

How much do freelancers make?

It depends on two things you control: your rate and how many hours you can bill. In the calculator’s sample, a freelancer billing 1,222 hours at $75.05 brings in about $91,700 before expenses and taxes. The same person billing only 800 hours at that rate brings in about $60,000. That gap is why two designers with the same skills can earn very different amounts. Enter your own numbers and you will see what you could make, not a national average.