๐Ÿ’ธ Freelance Rate Calculator

Work out the hourly rate, day rate and blended rate you need to charge as a freelancer or contractor โ€” after tax, business expenses and the admin time you can't bill for.

Your goals & costs

Enter your targets and the calculator updates instantly.

$
What you want to keep after tax and business expenses.
Default 48 = 52 โˆ’ 4 holiday/sick.
$
Software, insurance, equipment, subscriptions, fees.
Admin, marketing & sales time.

Your rate

The rate you need to hit your target take-home.

Hourly rate
โ€”
Day rate
โ€”
Blended rate
โ€”
Revenue you must invoice / yearโ€”
Billable hours / yearโ€”
Effective billable hours / weekโ€”

Where each dollar goes

Start from a rate

Already have a rate in mind? See what it earns you.

$
$
Gross = rate ร— billable hours ร— weeks. Take-home = (gross โˆ’ expenses) minus your tax buffer.

What it earns

Annual outcome at this rate and workload.

Gross revenue / year
โ€”
Take-home / year
โ€”
Billable hours / yearโ€”
Less business expensesโ€”
Less tax bufferโ€”
Take-home per billable hourโ€”

Why Use BizziKit's Free Freelance Rate Calculator?

Price from your goals, not a guess

Start with the take-home income you actually want and work backwards to the rate that delivers it, instead of copying whatever the freelancer next to you charges.

Covers tax, expenses & admin

A rate that ignores tax, software costs and unbillable admin time quietly leaves you underpaid. This calculator builds all three into the number.

Hourly, day & blended rates

See your required hourly rate, a matching day rate and the blended rate you truly earn across every working hour โ€” the number that tells you if the business stacks up.

Private & free forever

Runs entirely in your browser with no login. Your figures are saved to your own device only, and you can export a PDF to share with an accountant.

How to set your freelance rate

  1. Set your target take-home. Decide the annual income you want to keep after tax and business costs โ€” this is your real goal, not your invoiced total.
  2. Add your business expenses. Include software, insurance, hardware, subscriptions, accounting fees and anything else you pay to operate.
  3. Gross up for tax. Apply a tax buffer so the revenue you invoice still leaves your target take-home after tax is set aside.
  4. Be honest about billable hours. Enter the hours you can genuinely bill each week and the weeks you'll actually work after holidays and sick days.
  5. Add non-billable overhead. Account for admin, marketing and sales time so your rate recovers the hours you spend running the business, not just delivering work.
  6. Test scenarios. Nudge the inputs to see how holidays, a slow month or a higher tax bracket change the rate you need.

Why your rate isn't your salary รท 2000

The classic shortcut โ€” take the salary you want, divide by roughly 2,000 working hours a year, and call that your hourly rate โ€” badly undersells almost every freelancer. A salaried employee's 2,000 hours are all paid. A freelancer's aren't. You can't bill the hours spent pitching, invoicing, chasing payments, doing your books, upgrading skills or marketing. You also have no paid holidays, no sick leave, no employer pension contribution and no employer covering half your tax. On top of that you carry your own software, insurance and equipment costs.

Once you strip out unbillable time and layer tax and expenses back on, the honest figure is often 1.5 to 2.5 times that naive salary-divided-by-2000 number. That's not overcharging โ€” it's the rate that leaves you with the same take-home as the equivalent salaried role. This calculator does that maths for you so the gap is visible before you quote, not after a lean year.

Hourly vs day vs project rates

Hourly rate

Best for open-ended, variable or support work. You're paid for exactly what you do, but you carry the time-tracking burden and clients feel every extra hour.

Day rate

Best for committed blocks of work such as contract days on-site. Simpler to quote and budget, and it discourages clients from nickel-and-diming your hours.

Project / fixed price

Best when scope is clear and you're efficient. Price it from your hourly rate ร— estimated hours, add a buffer for revisions, and you get paid for value and speed rather than clock time.

This information is general in nature and does not constitute tax, accounting, or legal advice. Tax rules and rates vary by country and change over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the freelance rate calculator free?

Yes. The BizziKit Freelance Rate Calculator is completely free with no sign-up. It runs entirely in your browser and your figures are saved only to your own device using localStorage, never sent to a server.

How do I calculate my freelance hourly rate?

Start with the take-home income you want, add your annual business expenses, then gross it up for tax to find the total revenue you must invoice. Divide that revenue by the number of hours you can actually bill in a year (billable hours per week x weeks worked). Because you cannot bill every working hour, factor in non-billable admin and marketing time so the rate covers it.

What's a good billable-hours assumption?

Most full-time freelancers realistically bill 20 to 30 hours in a typical week and take around 4 weeks off for holidays and sick days, so 48 working weeks is a common planning figure. Assuming you can bill all 40 hours of a week is the single biggest mistake in freelance pricing.

Should I charge an hourly rate or a day rate?

Hourly rates suit short, variable or ad-hoc tasks and make it easy to bill exactly what you work. Day rates suit larger blocks of committed work, are simpler to quote and protect you from constant small time-tracking. Many freelancers publish both, and increasingly quote fixed project prices derived from an underlying hourly rate for predictable scopes.

How much should I set aside for tax?

As a rough planning buffer many freelancers set aside 25 to 35 percent of their profit for income tax, and separately account for sales tax or GST where it applies. Your actual rate depends on your country, income level and deductions, so treat the tax buffer here as an estimate and confirm with an accountant or your tax authority.

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