Freelance rate calculator
Setting your rate too low is the most common freelancing mistake — it is easy to copy an employee salary and forget that freelancers fund their own expenses, time off and unpaid admin. This calculator works the problem backwards: from the income you want and the hours you can realistically bill, it tells you the hourly rate you actually need to charge.
How it works
The tool first finds the money you must earn from billing — your target take-home income plus business expenses — then divides it by the total billable hours you can work in a year (billable hours per week × weeks worked). An optional non-billable buffer shrinks your effective billable hours, raising the rate so unpaid admin, marketing and quoting time is still covered:
hourly rate = (income + expenses) ÷ (billable hours/week × weeks × (1 − buffer%))
It also shows a day rate, calculated as the hourly rate multiplied by your billable hours per week figure.
Example
Want £60,000 take-home with £8,000 of expenses, billing 25 hours/week across 46 weeks, no buffer:
- money needed = 60,000 + 8,000 = £68,000
- billable hours = 25 × 46 = 1,150 hours
- hourly rate = 68,000 ÷ 1,150 ≈ £59/hour
Adding a 20% non-billable buffer cuts effective hours to 920 and pushes the rate to about £74/hour, ensuring unpaid time is still paid for.
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Target income | £60,000 |
| Expenses | £8,000 |
| Billable hours/week | 25 |
| Weeks worked | 46 |
| Hourly rate (no buffer) | ≈ £59 |
Everything is calculated locally in your browser — your figures never leave your device.