Whether you're a consultant or freelancer, find out what to charge per hour or per day to hit your target income.
Enter the annual income you want to take home.
Factor in taxes, expenses, and time off.
See the hourly and day rate you need to charge.
Most freelancers set their rate by picking a number that sounds about right and hoping it covers things. This does it the other way around — it starts from what you need to take home and works backward to the rate that gets you there.
Here's the math it runs:
Use whatever currency you like — the math doesn't care whether those are dollars, pounds, or euros.
Say you want to take home $100,000, you set aside 30% for taxes, you have $5,000 in annual expenses, you take 4 weeks off, and you bill 6 hours a day.
If $104 an hour sounds higher than you expected, that's the point — it's what it takes to net $100k once taxes, time off, and unbillable hours are in the picture.
There's no single right number — it depends on your field, your experience, and your market. What this gives you is a floor: the rate below which you're working for less than you think. A lot of consultants quote a fee that looks fine next to a salary and only later realize it didn't leave room for taxes or the weeks they weren't billing. Start from the number you need, then adjust up for your market — not the other way around.
The calculator gives you both, and which one you quote is mostly about the work. Hourly suits open-ended or support work where the scope keeps moving. A day rate suits focused engagements where you're blocking out whole days — and it spares you from tracking every fifteen minutes. The underlying rate is the same; you're just packaging it differently.
A full-time year runs about 2,080 hours (40 × 52). It's tempting to take a $100,000 salary, divide by 2,080, and call $48 an hour your freelance rate. Don't. That number assumes every hour is paid, ignores self-employment tax, and skips the expenses an employer used to cover. Going from a salary to a freelance rate is its own calculation — the salary calculator handles that direction.
Start from what you need to take home, then add taxes, expenses, and unbilled time — which is what this calculator does. The result is your floor. From there, adjust up based on your experience and what your market pays. There's no universal figure, but quoting a rate without running this math is how people end up underpricing.
A good rate covers your income target after taxes, expenses, and the weeks you're not billing — and that your market will actually pay. The calculator gives you the first half (your minimum); your field and experience set the rest.
Don't just divide by 2,080. A freelance rate has to absorb self-employment tax, business expenses, and unpaid time off that a salary hid. Use the salary calculator for the salary-to-rate direction, or enter your target take-home here and let it gross everything up.
Fewer than you'd expect. Even working full days, admin, sales, and email eat into billable time — 5 to 6 billable hours a day is realistic for a lot of freelancers, not 8. The calculator lets you set this, and it's worth being honest about, because a high number quietly pushes your rate down.
Hourly fits open-ended or support work where scope shifts. A day rate fits focused engagements and saves you from tracking every fifteen minutes. The calculator shows both from the same underlying rate.
Yes. The math is currency-agnostic — enter your numbers in dollars, pounds, euros, or anything else, and the rate comes back in the same units. The default tax rate is only a starting point; set it to whatever applies where you are.
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