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Free tool

Freelance hourly rate calculator

Your rate has to cover the income you want, the tax and costs an employer would have paid, and the hours nobody pays for. Change any number and it updates.

Updated 2026-10-01

What you’d want as a salary, before income tax.
Health insurance, retirement, software, equipment, accountant. Things an employer would pay for.
Vacation, holidays, sick days.
Hours a client pays for, not hours you work.

Charge at least

— an hour

Now make sure every one of those hours gets billed. tab tracks your time per client and turns the week into an invoice at this rate.

Track hours at this rate, free

How this works

An employee’s hourly pay is their salary divided by 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks). A freelancer can’t use that number, for three reasons:

  • You pay the employer’s share of tax. In the US, employers pay 7.65% on top of salary for Social Security and Medicare. Self-employed people pay both halves, so the calculator adds that 7.65%.
  • You pay for what an employer would. Health insurance, retirement, equipment and software come out of your rate.
  • Not every hour is billable. Finding clients, admin, invoicing and learning are work nobody pays for. Time-tracking data from US companies puts billable time at about two thirds of hours worked (Clockify, 2025), and freelancers carry their own sales and admin on top. 25 billable hours a week is a reasonable starting point; track a few weeks to learn yours.

This is a floor, not a price. Your market, your experience and the value of the work can and should push it higher. To see what people in your field earn as employees, start from a freelance rate guide for your profession.

Questions

How do I convert a salary to a freelance hourly rate?

Add the 7.65% employer share of Social Security and Medicare and your yearly business costs to the salary, then divide by the hours you can actually bill in a year (billable hours a week × working weeks). That’s your floor.

How many billable hours should I plan for?

Fewer than you work. Admin, sales, invoicing and learning aren’t billable. Many freelancers plan on 20 to 30 billable hours a week; tracking your time for a few weeks tells you your real number.

Is the result my price?

It’s the minimum that matches the income you entered. Charge more for specialist skills, rush work, or work worth a lot to the client.

Bill every hour you set a rate for.

tab tracks time per client at their own rate, finds the gaps you forgot to track, and turns the week into an invoice.

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