⏰ Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Charging what your old job paid per hour is the classic mistake: an employee gets paid for 2,080 hours a year, but a freelancer only bills a fraction of their time and covers their own taxes, software, and slow weeks. Work it backward from the life you want instead.
Charge at least this per hour
$94.86
Billable hours per year
1,012
Day rate (7 billable hours)
$664
To take home $90,000 a year you need $95 an hour. Land one retainer client at 10 hours a week and that is $3,794 of predictable monthly revenue.
Estimates for planning, not financial advice. Your real numbers will vary; that is exactly why you track them.
Like these numbers? Build the business behind them.
A free account turns this math into a real plan: pick your idea (or bring your own), get a week-by-week launch roadmap, and track every step with AI help along the way.
Good questions about this math
Why so few billable hours per week?
Because finding clients, invoicing, calls, and admin eat the rest. Most solo freelancers bill 20 to 25 hours in a 40 hour week. Pretending you will bill 40 leads to a rate that quietly starves you.
Should I charge hourly at all?
Hourly is the training wheels. Once you know what an outcome is worth to a client, package it at a flat price; you get paid for value and speed instead of being punished for being fast.
More calculators
🏷️
Product Pricing Calculator
Turn your cost and target margin into the price you should charge.
⚖️
Break-Even Calculator
How many sales a month until the business pays for itself.
🔁
Salary to Hourly Calculator (and Hourly to Salary)
Convert a yearly salary to an hourly rate, or an hourly rate to a salary, with the employer cost by state.