Hourly Rate Calculator
Price your time.
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About Hourly Rate Calculator
The Hourly Rate Calculator helps freelancers, contractors, and tradespeople figure out the minimum hourly rate they need to charge. Enter your desired annual take-home income, your annual business expenses, how many billable hours you work each week, and how many weeks you work per year. It instantly shows the rate to charge, plus your total annual billable hours and what you need to bill each year.
The tool is completely free with no sign-up, no limits, and no watermarks. Everything runs entirely in your browser, so your income and expense figures are never uploaded to a server or stored anywhere. Adjust any number and the results recalculate live.
Frequently asked questions
- How is the hourly rate calculated?
- The rate is your desired annual take-home income plus your annual business expenses, divided by your total billable hours for the year. Total billable hours is your billable hours per week multiplied by the number of weeks you work per year. For example, $70,000 income plus $8,000 expenses over 1,200 billable hours (25 hrs/week x 48 weeks) works out to $65 per hour.
- What are billable hours and why not just use 40 hours a week?
- Billable hours are the hours you can actually invoice a client for, which is almost always fewer than the hours you work. Time spent on admin, marketing, quoting, invoicing, and unpaid breaks is not billable. Most freelancers only bill 40 to 60 percent of their working week, so basing your rate on billable hours gives you a realistic number.
- Should I include taxes in my desired income?
- This tool treats your income figure as take-home, so enter what you want to keep after expenses. It does not calculate income or self-employment tax, which vary by location and situation. Because taxes reduce what you keep, you should set your rate above this minimum, or increase your desired income figure to cover your expected tax bill.
- Is this hourly rate calculator free to use?
- Yes, it is completely free with no account, no sign-up, and no usage limits. You can calculate as many rates as you want, as often as you like.
- Is my income and expense data uploaded or stored anywhere?
- No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your income, expenses, and hours are never sent to a server, saved, or shared. When you close the tab, nothing is retained.
- Why should I add a margin on top of this rate?
- The result is a minimum break-even rate that assumes you bill every planned hour. In reality you will have slow periods, sick days, cancellations, and unbillable gaps. Adding a buffer of 15 to 30 percent above this figure helps cover those gaps, taxes, and profit so you are not just breaking even.