How Much Should I Charge per Hour as a Freelancer?

The most common pricing mistake new freelancers make is taking their old salary and dividing it by 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks). That number ignores almost everything that makes freelancing different from a job.

What the salary math leaves out

• Time off. Nobody pays you for vacation, public holidays or sick days.
• Non-billable hours. Finding clients, writing proposals, invoicing, admin and learning can easily take a third of your week.
• Business expenses. Software, equipment, insurance, an accountant — and, in many countries, health coverage and retirement that an employer used to fund.
• Taxes. Self-employment taxes are often higher than what you saw on a payslip.

A worked example

Say you want $80,000 a year after taxes and costs. You expect $9,000 in business expenses and about 25% of revenue going to taxes. You work 40 hours a week, 65% of them billable, with 4 weeks of vacation and 10 holidays or sick days.

The freelance rate calculator works it out like this:

• Working weeks: 52 − 4 − 2 = 46
• Billable hours: 46 × 40 × 65% = 1,196 a year — not 2,080
• Revenue needed: ($80,000 + $9,000) ÷ (1 − 0.25) = $118,667
• Minimum hourly rate: $118,667 ÷ 1,196 ≈ $99 an hour

The naive salary math would have suggested around $38 an hour. Charging that would leave you working full-time for well under half of what you planned.

Use it as a floor

This is the minimum that keeps your business healthy, not necessarily your price. Rates depend on your niche, experience and the value you create; many freelancers move to project or value-based pricing once they know their floor. When you raise prices, the percentage calculator makes it easy to work out the new numbers.