About the hourly rate calculator
Most freelancers set their rate by guessing, or by copying whatever a competitor charges. This calculator works backwards from the number that actually matters: the money you want to take home at the end of the year.
It accounts for the four things that quietly eat a freelance rate. Unbillable time, because you do not bill for admin, sales calls or invoicing. Time off, because holiday and sick days are unpaid when you work for yourself. Business expenses, from software subscriptions to your accountant. And tax, which comes out of gross revenue rather than the take-home figure you started with.
Enter your target take-home income, how many hours a week you realistically expect to bill, how many weeks a year you plan to work, your annual expenses and your effective tax rate. The result is the minimum hourly rate that clears all of it, plus the day rate and the gross revenue you need to invoice to get there.
The gap between a naive calculation and this one is usually large. Someone targeting sixty thousand a year who divides by 2,080 hours arrives at roughly twenty-nine an hour. Once you strip out unbillable time, unpaid leave, expenses and tax, the same target often needs a rate above sixty. That difference is the single most common reason freelancers feel busy and still come up short.
Treat the output as a floor, not a ceiling. It is the rate below which the work does not meet your target — what you charge above it depends on demand, specialism and the value of the outcome to the client.