Free tool
What should you actually charge?
Start from the money you want to keep, not from what the next person charges. Tell it what you want to take home, what running your business costs, what you set aside for tax and how many hours you can genuinely bill — and it works back to the hourly, day and week rate that gets you there.
This is a planning calculator, not tax or financial advice. Tax rates, thresholds and social contributions differ by country and by how you're set up — check the number you set aside with an accountant who knows your situation.
Why your old salary ÷ 2,080 is the wrong number
The most common way freelancers set a rate is to take the salary they used to earn, divide it by the 2,080 hours in a working year, and add a bit. It produces a number that quietly guarantees you earn less than you did as an employee — because it counts hours you'll never invoice, and ignores every cost your employer used to absorb.
Three things went missing. Tax: a salary figure is what you took home after it; your invoices are what you take home before it. Expenses: laptops, software, insurance and an accountant used to come out of somebody else's budget. And unbillable time: nobody pays you to write proposals, chase invoices, do your books or find the next client. This calculator puts all three back in.
Billable hours are the number people get wrong
A full-time week is forty hours. A full-time billable week, for most freelancers, is twenty to twenty-five. Selling, admin, bookkeeping, learning and the gaps between projects are real work that no client pays for directly — they're paid for out of your rate.
That's why the billable-hours field is the one that moves your rate most. Drop from eight billable hours a day to five and your rate has to rise by roughly 60% for you to end the year in the same place. If you don't know your real figure yet, guess low, then track your time for a month and come back with the actual number.
What the calculator does with your inputs
It works backwards. Your take-home target is grossed up by your tax rate to get the pre-tax profit you need. Business expenses are added on top, because they come out of revenue before profit. Then the buffer is applied, so a slow month or a client who pays late doesn't come straight out of your own pocket. That total is the revenue you have to bill — divided by the hours you can genuinely bill, it's your rate.
Hourly, day rate or project fee?
The hourly number is the foundation, not necessarily what you put on the invoice. Many clients prefer a day rate or a fixed project fee, and fixed fees reward you for getting faster instead of penalising you for it. Price those from the same underlying rate: estimate the hours honestly, multiply, and add for risk if the scope is loose. Then track the time you actually spend, so the next quote is grounded in evidence rather than optimism.
Revisit it once a year
Your costs rise, your skills compound, and the rate you set as a beginner stops matching the work you do. Run this again every year — and any time you're fully booked for months, which is the market telling you plainly that you're too cheap.
Now find out what you're really billing.
A rate is only a plan. Billable tracks the time you actually bill, the invoices you actually get paid for, and what's left after expenses — so next year's number comes from your own books.
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