Freelance Rate Calculator

Find the hourly rate you need to charge to hit your income target.

Inputs

Desired Annual Income

Annual Business Expenses

Billable Hours per Week

Hours you can actually bill, not total working hours.

Working Weeks per Year

Currency

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Saved Scenarios

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Required Hourly Rate

$73.33

Billable Hours/Year

1,200

Spark says

How it's calculated

Formula

Rate = \dfrac{Desired\ Income + Expenses}{Billable\ Hours/Week \times Weeks/Year}

Billable\ Hours: — Hours you can actually invoice — not all working hours are billable

What is the Freelance Rate Calculator?

Freelancers rarely bill 100% of their working hours — this calculator accounts for that gap, plus business expenses, to find the rate that actually hits your income target.

How to use it

1 Enter your desired take-home income.
2 Enter your annual business expenses (software, insurance, etc.).
3 Enter realistic billable hours per week.
4 Enter how many weeks you plan to work.

Worked examples

$80,000 target, $8,000 expenses, 25 billable hrs/week, 48 weeks

Required rate is about $73.33/hour.

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Common mistakes

⚠️ Using total working hours instead of billable hours — admin, marketing and unpaid time all reduce what you can actually invoice.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a billable hour?

Only time you can directly invoice a client for — time spent on marketing, admin, invoicing and finding new clients is real work but isn't billable.