Find out exactly what to charge your clients. Enter your income goal and expenses — get your minimum, recommended and premium hourly rate instantly.
💡 Enter your details above to see your ideal hourly rate. The recommended rate includes a 20% buffer for slow months, revisions, and business costs.
Setting the right hourly rate is one of the most important and difficult decisions every freelancer faces. Charge too little and you struggle to cover your expenses. Charge too much and you lose clients to competitors. Our free hourly rate calculator helps you find the perfect rate based on your actual financial situation.
The calculator considers your income goal, monthly expenses, working hours, vacation time and tax rate to give you three rates — minimum, recommended and premium. The recommended rate includes a 20% buffer for slow months, unpaid admin time and unexpected costs that most freelancers forget to factor in.
Most freelancers undercharge because they only think about their income goal and forget to account for taxes (which can be 20-30% of income), business expenses, time spent on non-billable work like emails and revisions, vacation and sick days, and the fact that you rarely bill 100% of your working hours.
Add your monthly income goal to your monthly expenses. Divide by (1 minus your tax rate) to account for taxes. Then divide by your available billable hours per month. Our calculator does all of this automatically — just enter your numbers and get your rate instantly.
It depends on your skill, experience and the type of work. Entry level freelancers on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork typically start at $5-15/hour. Mid-level freelancers earn $15-50/hour. Senior specialists can charge $50-150/hour or more. Use this calculator based on your own income goals rather than market averages.
Both have advantages. Hourly is safer for projects where the scope might change. Per project gives clients a clear budget and rewards your efficiency. Many experienced freelancers use hourly rate calculations to set project prices — they estimate hours needed and multiply by their rate.
Most freelancers realistically bill 60-70% of their working hours. A 5-day work week of 8 hours gives you about 160 working hours per month but realistically only 100-120 billable hours after accounting for admin, emails, revisions and finding new clients.