Freelance Rate Calculator
Tell us your income target, country, and how much time you actually bill, and get the hourly rate you need to charge to hit it. Accounts for tax, vacation, and overhead so you don't underprice yourself.
About You
Income target
Working pattern
Tax (advanced)
Your Rate Card
Independent Consultant
below this you lose money
vs. employment
Client budget checker
Market context - median freelance rates
| Role | Typical range (USD/hr) |
|---|---|
| Web Developer | $75 - $120 |
| Designer | $65 - $100 |
| Data Analyst | $70 - $110 |
| DevOps Engineer | $85 - $130 |
| Copywriter | $50 - $80 |
| Project Manager | $60 - $95 |
Approximate USD figures based on global platform averages. Rates vary significantly by region, niche, and experience level.
Why your freelance rate needs to be much higher than your employed salary
A common mistake: dividing your desired salary by 2,080 hours (52 weeks x 40 hrs). A £60,000/yr job works out to £28.85/hr employed - but a freelancer charging that rate would earn far less than £60k after self-employed tax, overhead, vacation time, and non-billable hours.
This calculator accounts for all four factors: your effective tax rate as a self-employed person (which includes employer-side contributions you now pay yourself), annual business overhead, weeks of vacation, and realistic billable utilization. The recommended rate adds a 20% buffer - essential for slow months, payment delays, and unexpected costs.
Learn more: why freelance rates run higher than salary math suggests
Billable hours are only part of your year
The calculator takes 52 weeks minus your vacation weeks, multiplies by 5 days and your hours per day, then applies your utilization percentage to get billable hours, the ones you can invoice. SoloHourly's guide to realistic billable hours recommends a 50 to 65% utilization rate, which is 20 to 30 billable hours a week, and shows a $3,000 project dropping from $100 to $83.33 an hour once 6 hours of non-billable work are counted.
A worked example
With the defaults (£60,000 take-home, £5,000 overhead, 4 weeks off, 75% utilization, 8-hour days and a 28% tax rate), the year has 48 working weeks, 1,920 working hours and 1,440 billable hours. Required gross revenue is (60,000 + 5,000) / (1 - 0.28) = £90,278, so the minimum rate is £62.69 an hour.
Dividing a £60,000 salary by 2,080 hours (52 weeks of 40 hours) gives only £28.85 an hour, so the minimum rate is about 2.2 times that. The recommended rate is 1.2 times the minimum, £75.23 an hour or £602 a day, and the stretch rate is 1.5 times, £94.04.
At 50% utilization the same target needs 960 billable hours, which lifts the minimum rate to £94.04 and the recommended rate to £112.85.
What the calculator assumes
Tax is taken as a flat rate on gross revenue, and your overhead is added to the target before that gross-up, so overhead is not treated as tax deductible. That is a cautious simplification. The tax rate for each country is a rough starting figure, so enter your own effective rate. "Equivalent employed salary" is the required gross divided by 1.12, the calculator's allowance for the benefits of employment, and is only a rough guide.
FAQ
Why are there three rate tiers?
The minimum rate covers your target take-home with no cushion. The recommended tier is 20% above it and the stretch tier 50% above, which leaves room for slow months, gaps between contracts and utilization coming in lower than planned.
What utilization should I use?
SoloHourly recommends 50 to 65%. The calculator defaults to 75%, so lower it if you do your own admin and sales. A higher figure gives a lower rate that is easy to miss in practice.
Does the tax rate need to be exact?
Use your effective rate, the share of income you pay in tax overall, not your top marginal rate. It scales the gross revenue the calculator says you need, so an estimate that is too high pushes your rate up.