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Figure out how much you should charge per hour based on your income goals.
Software, equipment, marketing, and similar costs.
Deduct vacation and unpaid time off.
Not all hours are billable.
Your ideal hourly rate
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Enter your income goal and billable hours to see a rate.
A $90,000 take-home target across 1,200 billable hours is an $85 an hour floor, and 16 hours at that floor is $1,360. The floor is the number before rush work or a difficult client. It is not the number that merely sounds reasonable.
Undercharging is usually a math error, not a personality trait. You pick a number that “sounds reasonable,” forget tax, forget software, and forget that half the week is unpaid. By December the rate that felt polite in January has quietly funded your client’s margin instead of your rent. This calculator starts from the income you need and works backward.
Enter take-home target, business expenses, and a tax rate that is at least honest. Then enter working weeks and billable hours, not clock hours. Sales calls, invoices, and learning days are real work. They are not hours you can put on an invoice. If you pretend they are billable, the hourly figure comes out too low and you will feel busy and poor at the same time.
The result is a floor, not a ceiling. Niche expertise, rush work, and clients who need hand-holding should sit above the floor. If the local market pays less than this number, you have a decision: cut costs, add billable hours, or find buyers who value the work. Silently matching a cheap competitor is how skilled people stay underpaid for years.
Use the hourly floor to build day rates and project quotes. A two-week website is not “a website price from Twitter.” It is your rate times the hours the job will actually take, plus a buffer. Put that quote into the Estimate Generator. When the work is done, bill it with the Free Invoice Generator. Incusia remembers line-item rates so you stop retyping them. Starter is $9 per month, locked at signup.
A rate that starts from the salary you wish you had, and ignores tax, software, and the hours nobody will pay for, comes out too low. $90,000 across 1,200 hours you can actually bill is $85 before you add anything. If the market pays less than that floor, the decision is costs, hours, or buyers. It is not a quieter number.
The point of the floor is the next line item. Sixteen hours at $85 is $1,360, and that should be the rate already saved, not a fresh guess typed because the quote felt high. A project price is that rate times the hours the job will take, plus the buffer you mean to keep.
Start with the annual take-home you need, add business expenses, then add a tax cushion that is at least honest. Divide that by the hours you can actually bill, not the hours you are awake. Sales calls, invoices, and learning days are real work. They are not hours you can put on an invoice. Enter working weeks and billable hours per week into this calculator. The result is a floor, not a ceiling. Niche work, rush jobs, and high-maintenance clients should sit above it. If the local market pays less than the floor, you have a decision: cut costs, add hours, or find better buyers.
Include software, hardware, insurance, accounting, a workspace, professional memberships, and the unpaid admin that keeps the business alive. Health insurance and retirement contributions belong in the number if you do not get them from an employer. Do not forget a buffer for slow months. People undercharge because they price only the fun hours and pretend December will look like October. If an expense exists only because you freelance, it goes in the calculator. If you would buy it anyway as a hobby, be honest. Inflating the list to justify a fantasy rate is how you freeze and never send the quote.
Most full-time freelancers who also sell, invoice, and do admin bill something like 20 to 28 hours in a healthy week, not 40. If you put 40 billable hours into the calculator, the hourly rate comes out looking cheap and you will feel busy and poor. Count only hours you can put on an invoice without lying. New freelancers often have even fewer billable hours while they build a pipeline. Recalculate when your mix of sales time and delivery time changes. A designer who spends two days on proposals is not a 40-hour factory. Price the real week.
The calculator gives you a labor rate. Tax is a separate line on the invoice when your registration requires it. In some places services are exempt. In others you must add VAT or sales tax once you cross a threshold. Do not bury tax inside the hourly number unless you have a reason and you say so. Clients compare apples to apples. An all-in rate that secretly includes tax looks high until they see a competitor’s net rate plus tax. Confirm with an accountant, then add tax on the invoice. This tool does not file tax or pick your rate for a country.
Multiply the hourly floor by the hours the job will actually take, then add a buffer for revisions and meetings. A “website for $4,000” pulled from social media is not a quote. Ten days of work at your rate, plus two days of risk, is a quote. Write the scope so extra Slack is extra money. If the client wants a fixed fee, the fee still comes from hours you estimated, not from a feeling. Use this calculator for the floor, then the estimate generator for the proposal. When the work is done, invoice the agreed fee, not a surprise hourly dump.
Yes. There is no signup and nothing is stored. Enter income, expenses, tax, weeks, and hours, then read the floor rate. Screenshot it or write it down if you want the number next week. The page is a worksheet, not a payroll system. If you later want saved rates on invoices, Incusia can remember line-item prices so you stop retyping them. That is a different job. For deciding whether $85 or $120 is the honest number this year, you do not need an account. You need numbers you will actually admit to.
Sometimes. Publishing a starting rate filters clients who cannot pay it. It also invites people who want the number and none of the scope. Many consultants show a range or “projects from” and put the real math in the proposal. If you work in a market where buyers expect a rate card, publish a floor and keep rush work off the card. Recalculate at least once a year when rent, tools, or utilization change. This calculator is for the private math. What you print on the site is a marketing choice. Do not publish a rate you cannot live on.
An hourly rate prices small, interruptible work. A day rate prices a block of your calendar, often six to seven billable hours, and protects you from a thousand five-minute questions. If a client wants you on site or on a call all day, quote a day rate derived from this hourly floor, not a discounted pile of hours. Day rates usually assume a cap on context switching. Hourly work should still have a minimum, or a 20-minute tweak costs you more to invoice than you earn. Use the calculator for the floor, then decide which wrapper the job deserves.
The hourly floor you calculate is the rate the next line item uses.
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Incusia is invoicing software for people who send their own invoices.
It handles invoices, estimates, recurring billing, expenses and follow ups in one place, in any currency.
It is built for freelancers, sole traders and small businesses, not for finance departments.
Last reviewed 28 August 2026.