Drag any number to adjust, click it to type.
Target Pay
desired monthly income, before tax
Allocation Target
billable hours per week
Tax Profile
used to estimate your take-home
Monthly Costs
monthly costs to stay afloat
To earn $3,000 a month working 25h a week, charge about $31/h, and never below $19/h.
Target rate
Cost breakdown
Of every $100 you bill at this level, about $65 covers your life, $22 goes to taxes and $14 runs the business. Business costs are paid before tax, so $1 spent on tools raises what you must bill by exactly $1. Living costs gross up: every $1 you need at home takes $1.33 of billing.
Capacity Load
25 billable · ~38 total hrs /week
Healthy Load
Your plan fits inside an 8-hour day, non-billable work included. There's room for admin, prospecting, sick days and actual rest. Your pricing doesn't rely on overworking.
Financial Runway
Every month at your target pay adds ~$863 to your buffer. Your freedom is growing.
Savings
cash you could live on
How much should a freelancer charge?
More than you think! And the reason is arithmetic. A freelancer's rate has to carry everything an employer normally pays for invisibly: taxes, equipment, insurance, slow months, vacation, and all the working hours that never appear on an invoice. Most underpriced freelancers didn't choose a low rate; they copied a salary and divided it by full-time hours, which quietly ignores all of the above.
The calculator above works the other way around. Start from what your life actually costs and what you actually want to earn, subtract the hours you can genuinely bill, and the right rate falls out. With the default example: a $3,000/month income goal, 25 billable hours a week, five weeks off, 25% tax and $1,450 of monthly costs, the target rate lands around $31/hour, and the survival floor at $19/hour. Your numbers will differ; that's the point. Drag any number on the left and watch the answer change.
Start from your floor, not from the market
Market rates tell you what other people charge. They don't tell you whether that rate keeps you alive. That's why this tool computes a survival rate first: the rate at which, given your real billable hours, you exactly cover your monthly costs and taxes, and not a cent more. It's the line you never cross, no matter how attractive the client or how dry the month. Knowing your floor changes negotiations: "I can't go below X" becomes a fact you can defend (instead of a bluff).
Above the floor sits the safe rate: survival plus a 20% buffer. Freelance income arrives in waves: projects end, invoices pay late, February happens. The buffer is what absorbs those waves instead of your rent money. And above that, your target rate: the one that funds the income you actually want.
The three mistakes that make freelancers underprice
Dividing a salary by 160 hours. A month has about 160 working hours; a freelancer bills far fewer. Prospecting, admin, emails, accounting and learning typically eat a third or more of the week. Whoever divides by 160 sets a rate that assumes a utopia, every hour sold, forever.
Forgetting that billable hours pay for the non-billable ones. Every billed hour must also finance the hours spent finding the next client. That's the structure of the job. The capacity gauge above makes it visible: 25 billable hours is already close to a real 40-hour week.
Ignoring the tax wedge. Your rate is pre-tax; your rent is paid after tax. To keep a dollar for living costs, you must bill noticeably more than a dollar. The higher your tax rate, the wider this wedge, which is why the survival rate rises when the tax slider does.
Taxes: what counts and what doesn't
Only income tax belongs in your rate math, the tax you settle on what you earn. VAT (or sales tax) does not: it's added on top of your invoices and passed straight on to the state. It inflates the number on the invoice, but never your income. Meanwhile, business expenses like workspace, software, subcontractors are usually tax-deductible, paid from pre-tax revenue. They genuinely cost you less than they appear, and the cost breakdown above shows the effect: spend on tools and watch the tax slice shrink.
Your rate is a freedom machine
Here's the reframe that makes pricing decisions easier: every dollar above your break-even buys time you don't have to sell. The financial runway chart above shows it directly: charge enough, and each month worked adds weeks of covered future. Charge break-even, and a decade of work builds precisely nothing between you and the next dry spell. When a client pushes back on your rate, that's what's actually on the table.
How this calculator works
All rates are computed live from your inputs, with no hidden assumptions:
- Monthly billable hours = weekly billable hours × (52 − weeks off) ÷ 12.
- Survival rate = (living costs ÷ (1 − tax rate) + business costs) ÷ monthly billable hours. Living costs are paid with after-tax money, so they're grossed up; business costs are tax-deductible, so they aren't.
- Safe rate = survival rate × 1.2, a 20% buffer for slow months.
- Target rate = your pre-tax income goal ÷ monthly billable hours.
- Capacity load assumes non-billable work (admin, prospecting) adds ~50% on top of billable hours, over a 5-day week.
- Runway = savings ÷ (living + business costs), with zero income and no income tax.
Last updated: July 2026
How much should a freelancer charge per hour?
It depends on three numbers: the income you want, the hours you can actually bill, and what your life and business cost each month. A common mistake is dividing a salary by 160 hours, but freelancers rarely bill full weeks, and they pay their own taxes, tools and slow months. This calculator works backwards from your real numbers to the rate that funds them.
What is a survival rate?
Your survival rate is the minimum you can charge without losing money: the rate that just covers your monthly costs (rent, food, tools, taxes) at your available billable hours. It's your floor. Never bill below it, whatever a client says about their budget.
What is a safe rate?
The safe rate adds a 20% buffer on top of your survival rate. Freelance income is irregular: projects end, invoices arrive late, some months are quiet. The buffer is what absorbs those shocks instead of your rent money.
How many hours can a freelancer actually bill?
Far fewer than they work. Prospecting, admin, emails, accounting and learning typically eat a third or more of a freelancer's week, so 20–30 billable hours is a realistic target for most full-time independents. Overestimating billable hours is the most common reason freelancers underprice.
Do taxes and VAT work the same way for freelancers?
No. Income tax comes out of what you earn and must be built into your rate. This calculator does that for you. VAT (or sales tax) is different: you add it on top of your invoices and pass it on to the state, so it plays no role in deciding what to charge.
How do business costs affect my rate?
Business expenses like a coworking desk, software or subcontractors are usually tax-deductible: they're paid from pre-tax revenue, so they cost you less than they appear. Living costs are the opposite, paid with after-tax money, which is why a higher tax rate raises the rate you need just to survive.
How many hours a day can a freelancer sustainably work?
Counting non-billable tasks, billing 25 hours a week already fills a real 8-hour-a-day schedule. Up to 8 hours a day is sustainable; 8 to 12 is an intense pace that works in bursts but erodes health and quality as a routine; beyond 12 hours a day, no rate makes the plan viable. If the only way to reach your target is more hours, the answer is almost always a higher rate instead. And working weekends doesn't lower the load, it just relabels it.
How much financial runway should a freelancer have?
Runway is how long your savings could cover your monthly costs if no new work came in. Because freelance income is irregular, a buffer of three to six months of costs is a common target, more than the classic advice for salaried employees. Once your runway passes a year, the question changes from survival to strategy: cash parked in a basic savings account slowly loses value to inflation, so a buffer that size is worth discussing with a financial professional rather than a calculator.
How does this calculator work?
Every number is computed live from your inputs using published formulas, with no hidden market averages. Your survival rate covers your real monthly costs (grossed up for tax where needed), the safe rate adds a 20% buffer, and the target rate funds your income goal within your true billable hours. The full methodology, including every formula, is published in the section above.
Go deeper
- How many billable hours per week is realistic?
- How much emergency fund does a freelancer need?
- How to calculate your freelance day rate
- Freelance tax deductions: your tools cost less than you think
- What's the minimum rate a freelancer should accept?
- Freelance rate vs salary: why a $60,000 job isn't $30 an hour
Retainers, day rates and monthly billing
Pricing a specific project?
Your rate is set here; the quote gets built in the Project Price Calculator. It already knows your numbers.
Weighing a job offer against freelancing? The Freelance vs Salary Calculator compares the full packages, your numbers included.
An OpenToolBase tool: free tools for freelancers, no signup.