Work backwards from the income you actually want. Enter your target take-home pay, how many hours you really bill, your expenses, and taxes — and see the hourly rate you need to charge to hit it.
Estimate only — a planning starting point, not financial advice. It assumes every billable hour is paid; pad the rate for scope creep and non-billable time.
Most freelancers guess a number that sounds reasonable and quietly underprice themselves. The honest way is to work backwards from the life you want:
The calculator does that math: it grosses your target up for tax, adds expenses, and divides by the hours you actually bill — giving the rate that hits your number.
The number one freelance pricing mistake is dividing a desired salary by 2,080 hours (40 × 52) and quoting that. It collapses because a freelancer is not billable 40 hours a week and carries costs an employee never sees. A rate that works is built from four inputs: your target take-home, your business costs, your self-employment tax, and — the piece everyone forgets — your actually billable hours.
Sales calls, admin, invoicing, marketing, and learning are unpaid but unavoidable. Most sustainable freelancers bill 50–65% of their working hours, not 100%. At 25 billable hours in a 40-hour week, you have ~1,300 billable hours a year, not 2,080 — so every dollar of income has to come from 1,300 hours, which nearly doubles the rate you need versus the naive math.
Target take-home $60,000. Add business costs (software, insurance, equipment) of $8,000 and set aside for self-employment + income tax at ~30% of profit. Working back from a $60k take-home, you need roughly $86,000 in profit before tax, plus $8,000 costs = about $94,000 in billings. Divide by 1,300 billable hours and your floor rate is about $72/hour — not the $29/hour that $60,000 ÷ 2,080 would suggest. Quote the $29 and you work all year to lose money.
Work backwards: take your target annual take-home, divide by (1 − your tax rate) to cover taxes, add your yearly business expenses to get required revenue, then divide by your realistic billable hours per year. That's your minimum rate — this calculator does it for you.
Fewer than you'd think. After sales, admin, and downtime, most full-time freelancers bill 20–30 hours a week. Using 40 will set your rate too low to actually hit your income goal.
Yes. As a freelancer you pay self-employment tax plus income tax — roughly 25–30% of profit — so your rate has to be high enough that what's left after taxes and expenses is your real take-home.
Related: freelance hourly rate benchmark (what to charge, by take-home target) · self-employed tax calculator · how to invoice as a freelancer · how to price a job.
More free pricing & profit tools — no signup, works on any device.
Yes. The Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator is completely free, runs in your browser, and never asks for a signup, email, or download. Enter your numbers and the result updates instantly.
It uses standard formulas and recalculates the moment you change a value, so the math is exact for the inputs you enter. Treat the result as a reliable planning estimate; for decisions with legal or tax consequences, confirm the figures with a qualified professional.
Yes. The calculator is mobile-friendly and works on any phone, tablet, or computer — there is no app to install and nothing to save.
Yes. Scroll to “Add this free calculator to your site” above and copy the embed snippet to place the live calculator on your blog or website for free.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Free to use, no signup — Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator by ToolWise Digital.
Copy the snippet to embed the live calculator on your blog or website — free for any site. The small “Calculator by ToolWise Digital” credit line keeps it free; you're welcome to remove it, but we appreciate you leaving it.
Ready-made Google Sheets & Excel trackers for money, taxes, and small business — each with a free phone version.
Browse the shop →Subscribe and we'll email you our Simple Monthly Budget (Google Sheets & Excel, plus a phone version) — free. Then the occasional short note on pricing, bookkeeping, and the money side of a small business. No spam — unsubscribe anytime.