Turn your target income into a realistic hourly rate, based on the hours you'll actually bill, not a fantasy 40-hour week.
Most freelancers can genuinely bill 20–25 hours a week once you account for admin, marketing, and slow weeks — not 40.
52 minus however many weeks of vacation, sick time, and slow periods you expect.
Covers self-employment taxes and unpaid admin/marketing time. 25–30% is a reasonable starting range.
This gives you a starting number, not a fixed rule. See our full guide on pricing freelance services as a beginner for how to adjust it for your specific situation.
Take your target annual income, add your overhead buffer on top to cover self-employment taxes and the unpaid time you'll spend on admin and marketing, then divide by your realistic annual billable hours (weekly billable hours × working weeks). That's the whole formula, no hidden assumptions. Most online rate calculators quietly assume a 40-hour billable week, which is almost never realistic once you account for the actual admin, client communication, and slow periods every freelancer deals with.
We built this because most rate calculators online are either overly simplistic (just "income divided by 2,000 hours") or gated behind an email signup. This one is free, shows its math, and defaults to numbers that reflect how freelancing actually works, not an idealized version of it.