Freelance Rate Calculator

Divide your annual salary by your working hours per year. A standard full-time example is 40 hours per week times 52 weeks, or 2,080 hours. A 52,000 annual salary divided by 2,080 equals 25 per hour before taxes and benefits.

Use annual salary divided by annual working hours. For the common 2,080-hour benchmark, divide annual salary by 2,080. For example, 62,400 divided by 2,080 equals 30 per hour.

Multiply the monthly salary by 12, then divide by annual working hours. With the 2,080-hour benchmark, a monthly salary of 4,000 becomes 48,000 per year, then 48,000 divided by 2,080 equals about 23.08 per hour.

A freelancer should charge enough to cover take-home income, business expenses, tax, unpaid leave, and non-billable time. The minimum acceptable rate is usually higher than an equivalent salary because freelancers do not bill every working hour. Use your own expenses, tax estimate, and billable percentage rather than copying a market average.

Freelance rates are higher because they include taxes, software, insurance, equipment, unpaid holidays, sick time, sales work, admin, and gaps between projects. Salaried employees are paid for many hours that freelancers cannot bill. A sustainable freelance rate has to recover those hidden costs.

Many freelancers can bill only 50 to 70 percent of their working time once admin, marketing, invoicing, learning, and client communication are included. Solo operators with many small clients may sit lower, while specialists on long retainers may sit higher. Tracking actual billable time is the best way to replace guesses with evidence.

Multiply the hourly rate by the number of hours in the day you are pricing. If your hourly rate is 80 and you quote an 8-hour day, the day rate is 640. You can also model a billable-day rate by multiplying by only the billable portion of the day.