Hourly Rate Calculator — what you must charge, not guess
Your income goal, your real costs, your honest billable hours — divided into the one number that keeps the business alive. Built for freelancers, trades, and anyone who sells time.
The arithmetic employers do for you
A salary quietly includes vacation, sick days, equipment, software, and the desk you sit at. Go independent and every one of those moves into your rate — or comes out of your income. The formula is short: (income goal + business costs) ÷ true billable hours. The mistake is never the division; it's the inputs. People forget costs, and they count 40 billable hours when the honest number — after quoting, travel, admin, and chasing payments — is nearer 25.
Three honest scenarios
| Income goal | Costs | Hrs/wk | Weeks | Minimum rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $60,000 | $5,000 | 25 | 48 | $54.17 |
| $70,000 | $8,000 | 25 | 48 | $65.00 |
| $100,000 | $15,000 | 30 | 46 | $83.33 |
Each of those rates is a floor. Quote above it where your market allows — and when a client balks, remember the alternative to a right-priced job is not a cheaper job, it's working at a loss.
Rate set — now the pricing around it
Hours at your rate usually ship with marked-up materials: price those with the markup calculator, then read the whole quote's health with the margin calculator. The break-even calculator answers the yearly version of the same question — how many billed hours cover your fixed costs.
Billing the hours
The free invoice generator is built for time billing: each line takes a quantity (your hours) and unit price (your rate), computes the amount, adds the right tax, and gives you a clean PDF — or just speak the invoice and the AI lays it out, with every total computed by code.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate my hourly rate as a freelancer?
Add your yearly income goal and yearly business costs, then divide by your true billable hours: billable hours per week × working weeks per year. Wanting $70,000 with $8,000 of costs, billing 25 hours across 48 weeks, means $78,000 ÷ 1,200 hours = $65/hour minimum.
Why only 25 billable hours in a 40-hour week?
Because quoting, invoicing, travel, admin, marketing, and email don't bill. Most independent workers genuinely bill 50–70% of their working hours — assuming 40 billable hours is the classic way to set a rate 40% too low. Count only hours a client actually pays for.
What counts as business costs?
Everything you must pay to operate: insurance, tools and equipment, software, vehicle and fuel, phone, licences, accounting, subcontractors' unbillable time. These come out of revenue before you're paid — so the calculator adds them on top of your income goal.
Should I add taxes to the rate?
The income goal here is your pre-tax income — what an employer would call gross salary. Income tax comes out of that, as it would from a paycheque. Sales tax (GST/HST) is separate: charge it on top of your invoices once registered; it's never part of the rate itself.
Is the calculated rate what I should charge?
It's your floor, not your price. Below it you're paying to work. Charge above it where the market allows — specialty skills, urgency, and strong demand all justify more. Many freelancers set their quoted rate 20–50% above their floor to fund slow months and growth.
How do weeks off change the rate?
Directly: fewer working weeks means fewer billable hours carrying the same income goal. Four weeks of vacation plus stat holidays and sick days is why the default is 48 weeks, not 52 — employees get paid time off, so your rate has to build it in.
How do I bill at this rate?
Put your hours and rate on invoice lines — '6 hrs on-site service @ $65' — and the free generator computes the totals and tax. One tap on “Invoice at this rate” opens it; no signup, no watermark, unlimited invoices.