Income, time and overhead planning

Freelancer Hourly Rate Calculator

Plan a rate around the hours you can actually bill, including time off, administration and business development.

Your annual plan

Annual income and costs

Time available for billable work

Non-billable work includes proposals, marketing, accounting and uncharged administration. It reduces billable hours after leave is removed. Do not subtract leave or non-billable time twice.

Freelancers fund their own paid leave. Both leave categories remove working days; the desired annual income remains your goal for the whole year. If extra unpaid leave should reduce that goal, enter the lower annual income yourself. No paid-leave cash benefit is assumed.

Income excludes the separate health and retirement budgets. Expenses exclude those budgets and your personal income. This simplified model funds all three personal budgets after the entered effective tax allowance; it does not infer deductions or tax brackets. The 25% default is illustrative, not your tax rate. Reserve margin is an additional pre-tax share of revenue, not guaranteed after-tax profit.

Inputs stay in your browser.

How the rate is calculated

Working weeks = 52 - (paid leave days + unpaid leave days) / working days per week. Billable hours = working weeks × weekly working hours × (1 - non-billable percentage / 100).

Personal funding = desired after-tax income + health insurance + retirement funding. Pre-tax personal funding = personal funding / (1 - effective tax allowance / 100). Baseline annual revenue = pre-tax personal funding + business expenses. Revenue including reserve = baseline / (1 - reserve margin / 100).

Minimum rate = baseline revenue / billable hours. Suggested rate = revenue including reserve / billable hours. Both rates round upward to cents. Suggested project price = rounded suggested hourly rate × entered billable project hours, rounded upward to cents.

Project hours should cover chargeable delivery and project-specific management. The hourly rate already funds general non-billable time; do not add that overhead percentage again. Separate project purchases, subcontracting and scope contingencies are excluded unless reflected in your inputs.

This is a planning model, not a tax calculation or a prediction of market rates, client demand or paid hours. Actual deductions, self-employment taxes, benefits and business structure may change your budget. The model assumes all planned billable hours are sold and paid.

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