Free Invoice Generator

Freelance rate calculator

Work backwards from what you need to earn to the rate that gets there, counting the hours you can't bill, the costs of running the business and what you put aside for tax.

What the year has to cover

What you want to end up with, before business costs and before anything set aside for tax.

Software, insurance, hardware, accounting, a desk somewhere: everything the work costs you before you're paid for it.

Whatever leaves again before it is yours: tax, pension, insurance, a quiet month. The rate is divided by what is left, not multiplied by this.

The hours you sell

Fifty-two minus holidays, minus the weeks you are ill.

All the hours you work, billable or not.

Round numbers to save typing, not targets. To find your own share, count the billable hours in a fortnight of your calendar.

Only used to turn the hourly rate into a day rate.

For the invoice

Used only if you press Create this invoice, as the name of the line.

GuideSetting a freelance rateHow this works, and where the figures go wrong →

What the freelance rate calculator does not do

  • It doesn't tell you what to charge. It works out the rate that reaches the target you typed, and the target is your choice. It can't tell you whether clients will pay that rate.
  • It doesn't know your tax. The share you set aside is a number you enter, not a rate looked up for you, and it covers whatever you decide it covers.
  • It doesn't model when work arrives. It assumes an even spread through the year, which is rarely how freelance work comes in, so the weekly and monthly figures are the year divided up, not a forecast.
  • It does not keep anything. Nothing is written to your browser's storage while you use it and nothing is sent to us, so the figures are gone when you close the tab.

Related

To go the other way, starting from a fixed rate and working out what a year holds at it, use the billable hours calculator, which starts from days off rather than working weeks. To turn this rate into an invoice with hours against it, the hourly invoice calculator takes blocks of hours and expenses. For what a client owes once the invoice is out, there is the invoice calculator. Pricing a thing rather than your time? The markup and margin calculator works between a cost and a price. If the answer is higher than what you charge now, the rate increase letter generator writes the email telling your clients. To see how much a rate you set years ago has lost to rising prices, try the rate vs inflation calculator.

Last updated 21 September 2026