Free Freelance Rate Calculator: Find Your Hourly Floor

A freelance rate has to pay for more than the hours you bill: business costs, time off, unpaid admin hours and money set aside for taxes. This calculator works backward from a yearly pay target to the lowest hourly rate that covers all of that, then turns it into a project price.

It runs in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. The numbers filled in below are a made-up example, not a typical or recommended rate; change them to yours.

Yearly pay target (what you want to pay yourself), $:

Yearly business costs (software, equipment, fees), $:

Tax set-aside, % of income: (estimate yours)

Weeks off a year (holidays, sick days, slow weeks):

Billable hours per working week (hours clients pay for):

Optional, hours for a project: buffer for revisions, %:

Work out my rate

How the math works

• Billable hours = (52 − weeks off) × billable hours per week. Emails, quotes, invoicing and finding clients usually aren't billable, so this is often well under 40 a week.
• Money needed = (pay target + business costs) ÷ (1 − tax set-aside).
• Hourly floor = money needed ÷ billable hours. It's the lowest rate that hits your target if the hours and costs hold; rounding up gives you room.
• Project price = estimated hours × rate × (1 + buffer).

Example (made up): a $40,000 target plus $2,000 of costs with a 25% set-aside is $42,000 ÷ 0.75 = $56,000. With 4 weeks off and 25 billable hours a week, that's 1,200 hours, so the floor is about $46.67 an hour, or $50 rounded up. A 12-hour project with a 15% buffer at $50 is $690.

Your floor is what you need; the market is what clients in your field expect to pay. Check what people with similar skills charge before you settle on a number. This is general information, not financial or tax advice.

Bill it and track who's paid

The Freelancer Invoice Template & Client Tracker ($9) is a spreadsheet with a printable invoice (pick a client and their details fill in), an invoice log, and a clients tab showing billed, paid and outstanding for each client. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.

Get the template on Gumroad – $9

This template is also in the Self-Employed & Small Business Bundle (what's inside): all 9 business tools for $29 (about $80 if bought one by one).

We make this template, so take that into account. The calculator above is free to use either way.

Related free guides

• How to Set Your Freelance Hourly Rate (Example Numbers)
• How to Write a Freelance Quote
• How to Ask Freelance Clients for a Deposit
• What to Put on a Freelance Invoice

More free tools: all calculators.

See all Cedar & Ledger templates