Getting-paid tools
Freelance hourly rate calculatorSet what you want to earn in a year, then back out the rate — remembering receiving eats a slice too.
Freelancers often price on gut feel, then find little left at year's end. Flip it: set your target yearly income, take out the time you can actually bill and the receiving loss, and back out the rate you should charge. Enter a few numbers and the tool gives you the suggested rate, the effective rate after loss, and how many hours a year you can really bill.
"Billable hours" counts only time you can invoice — not finding work, communicating or admin. For loss, use the percentage cost of your receiving path; estimate it with the other calculators first.
Effective rate after loss US$0.00 · 0 billable hours/yr
How these numbers connect
First, gross the target back up: because receiving takes a slice, the amount you must invoice is more than what you want to keep: target take-home divided by (1 − loss rate). Then spread it over the hours you can truly bill: billable hours per week times working weeks per year gives billable hours a year. Divide the two and you get the rate to charge. Note that "billable hours" are usually far fewer than the time you actually put in; finding work, communicating and rework don't bill directly, so price that in.
A worked example: you want to keep $50,000 a year, can bill 25 hours a week, work 46 weeks, and lose 5% to receiving. The invoice total is 50,000 ÷ 0.95 ≈ $52,632, billable hours are 25 × 46 = 1,150, so the rate is 52,632 ÷ 1,150, about $45.8 an hour. Add business costs such as equipment, software subscriptions and insurance to the target before you start. For how to measure your billable hours and check the result against the market, see how much to charge per hour as a freelancer.
To get a single quote right, use the quote gross-up calculator; to push that loss figure down, compare channels first in four ways to get paid overseas.
FAQ
What's a realistic billable-hours-per-week figure?
For full-time freelancers, billable time is often 25 to 35 hours a week, with the rest going to finding work, communicating and admin. Setting it too high gives an artificially low rate that misleads you.
Why is the effective rate below the suggested rate?
The suggested rate is what you should invoice; the effective rate is what actually reaches you after receiving loss. The bigger the loss, the wider the gap, which is the point of controlling receiving costs.
Does this include tax?
Not directly, but you can work around it: turn your after-tax goal into a pre-tax one before entering it, after-tax target ÷ (1 − your rough overall tax rate). To keep 40,000 after tax at a rough 20% rate, enter 50,000. Estimate the rate from your country's tax brackets, or use last year's tax paid as a share of income if you are unsure.