How is the recommended hourly rate calculated?

It adds the take-home income you want plus your business expenses, grosses that up for tax and slow periods, then divides by your billable hours per year (billable hours/week × working weeks). That gives a rate that actually covers your real costs.

Why is my rate higher than I expected?

Because not all your time is billable and you carry expenses and tax. Charging your "salary ÷ 2080 hours" undercharges badly — this calculator builds in the realistic gaps.

Is it free and private?

Yes. It is free with no sign-up, and the calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is sent unless you choose to email yourself the result.

How do you calculate a freelance hourly rate?

Add the take-home income you want plus your yearly expenses, gross that up for tax and slow periods, then divide by your billable hours for the year (billable hours per week × working weeks). The result is the freelance hourly rate that actually covers your costs — not just salary ÷ 2,080.

How do you set a freelance rate based on a salary?

Enter the take-home pay you had (or want) as the desired income, add the expenses an employer used to cover — software, equipment, insurance, downtime — and set your tax buffer. The calculator then shows the hourly rate you would need to charge to actually match that salary as a freelancer.

Free Calculator

Freelance Rate Calculator

Work out the hourly rate you should actually charge — covering the income you want, your expenses, tax, and time that isn't billable.

Instant result
Runs in your browser
Hourly and day rate

Desired take-home / year

Business expenses / year

Billable hours / week

Working weeks / year

Tax + buffer (%)

Allowance for tax and slow periods, applied to your take-home. Expenses are added on top, untaxed.

Email me this result

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Pricing

Charge what you actually need to earn

Here is the trap almost every freelancer falls into: take the salary you would want from a job, divide it by 2,080 working hours, and call that your hourly rate. It feels logical. It is also how you end up broke — because you do not bill every hour, you pay your own tax, and you have months that go quiet.

Tell this calculator what you want to take home, and it works backwards to the number you should be quoting.

Why your real rate is higher than you think

The tool grosses up your target income to cover tax and downtime, then divides by the hours you can genuinely bill — not the forty you are “at work”. That is not the calculator being greedy. It is the calculator being realistic, and undercharging is the most common reason freelancers burn out.

The same $60,000 take-home needs $80,000 of revenue once tax and a slow-period buffer are covered.
Spread across 1,150 genuinely billable hours rather than a notional 2,080, the honest rate is more than double the naive one.
Run it both ways. Try the same figures at 20 billable hours a week instead of 25 — the rate moves more than most people expect, which is usually the moment the number stops feeling arbitrary.

The same $60,000, worked two ways

The usual way

Hours assumed2,080

Tax and quiet monthsForgotten

Revenue needed$60,000

$28.85

Worked backwards

Hours billable1,150

Tax + buffer25%

Revenue needed$80,000

$69.57

Same target income, same person. Only the second one pays the tax bill and the quiet months.

What it asks, and why each bit matters

Five inputs, none of them there to pad the number. Each one is a reason the naive calculation is wrong.

Take-home income you want for the year, and your annual business expenses.
Billable hours per week and the weeks you actually work — admin, pitching and holiday are not billable.
A percentage for tax plus a buffer for slow periods, which you set yourself. It is applied to your take-home only, because business expenses are paid before tax. That is also why location is not a problem: set UK, German or US figures and the maths holds.

Five in, four out

1Take-home you wantFor the year, after tax.
2Expenses and billable hoursWhat it costs, and what you can sell.
3Weeks you actually workNot fifty-two.
4Tax plus a bufferA percentage you set.

Recommended rate$69.57

What comes back

Four figures, so that instead of a vague “$50 an hour sounds fine” you have a number with reasoning behind it that survives a client asking how you got there.

A recommended hourly rate and the matching day rate, based on an eight-hour day.
The annual revenue you need to hit to land on your target take-home.
Your real billable hours — usually the figure that surprises people most.

The worked example, in full

Hourly rate

$69.57

Day rate (8h)

$557

Revenue needed

$80,000

Billable hours

1,150

$60,000 take-home · 25 hours a week · 46 weeks · 25% tax and buffer.

Free, private, no sign-up

The whole thing runs in your browser. Your income figures and expenses are never uploaded anywhere, and there is no account to make.

Your figures are not sent anywhere while you calculate — the maths happens in the page you are looking at.
Which means your actual numbers, not rounded stand-ins, can go in.
Nothing to delete afterwards, because nothing was kept.

Where your numbers go

parix.ai/free-ai-tools/freelance-rate-calculator/

Your figures stay here

nothing sent

Parix.ai serverNever contacted while you use the calculator.

The short version

Four numbers worth keeping

2,080

The hours figure that causes the problem. You do not bill them.

1,150

Genuinely billable hours in the worked example above.

Inputs, each one a reason the naive sum is wrong.

101

Free tools on Parix.ai, none of them behind a sign-up.

Free, and staying free

Why Parix.ai gives this away

We run a studio, so we have done this arithmetic for ourselves and watched people quote from optimism instead. These tools are how people find us, which is the whole reason there is no paywall, no trial and no sign-up on any of them.

Work out my rate

Who uses it

Freelancers setting a rate for the first time, and experienced ones checking whether theirs still covers the year. Designers, writers, developers and consultants — the logic does not care what the trade is.

Pair it with

The Profit Margin Calculator checks what is actually left after costs on a given project, and the EMI / Loan Calculator helps if you are weighing a big purchase or financing gear.

Before your next quote

Next time a client asks what your rate is, run your real figures first and quote a number that pays your bills, your taxes and your quiet months — not just your optimism.