Freelance Day Rate Calculator
Enter your target annual income and the tool works out the day rate you need to charge, accounting for holidays and non-billable time.
A UK freelancer? Once you have your rate, make a proper invoice with the UK Invoice Maker. And if a client pays late, you may be able to claim interest and compensation by law: work out what you are owed. A US freelancer? If a client pays late, the US Late Fee Calculator and Demand Letters works out late fees from your own terms and writes the reminder or demand letter.
Your desired gross income before tax.
52 minus holidays, sick days, and unpaid downtime. 46 is a reasonable default.
Days actually billed to clients. Allow 1 day for admin and business development.
day rate required to hit $75,000 per year
Ok, so if I go freelance, what do I charge for a day? I want to earn $75,000 a year, before tax.
I won't be working every week or billing every day, so say 46 weeks a year, 4 days a week I can bill, and 8 hours a day. 46 times 4 is 184 billable days, which is 1,472 hours.
So $75,000 across 184 days is about $408 a day, or $50.95 an hour.
What if I only land 3 billable days a week? Then I'd need $543 a day to hit the same number.
And if I'd just divided by 260 working days, I'd have said $288 a day and ended up short.
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When you work for yourself, you only earn on the days you can bill, and nobody pays you for holidays or sick days. Enter the income you want and this works out the day rate you need to charge to get there.
How it's worked out
- Your billable days are the weeks you work times the days a week you can bill.
- Your day rate is the income you want divided by those billable days.
- Your hourly rate is the income divided by the billable days times the hours in a day.
To earn $80,000 over 46 weeks at 4 billable days a week, you have 184 billable days. The day rate is $434.78. At 8 hours a day, that is $54.35 an hour.
Common mistakes
- Charging what an employee would earn per day. Employees get paid holiday, sick pay and a pension. You pay for all of that yourself.
- Counting every weekday as a day you can bill. Finding clients, invoicing and admin take time that nobody pays for.
- Forgetting tax and business costs when you set your target.
- Quoting a day rate for work that is not clearly scoped, so the days quietly grow.
Questions
Why is 46 the default for working weeks?
52 weeks minus roughly 4 weeks holiday, 1 week public holidays, and 1 week sick leave. This varies by country and personal situation. Adjust to match your realistic available weeks.
Why is 4 the default for billable days per week?
One day per week spent on admin, invoicing, prospecting, and business development is a common rule of thumb. Adjust down if you are working through an agency that handles this, up if you are unusually efficient.
Is this gross or net income?
Gross, before tax. To set a rate that covers a target take-home, increase the target income to account for your expected tax rate before entering it here.
Why not just divide my target by 365?
Because you cannot bill every day. Weekends, holidays, sick days and the time you spend finding work and doing admin are not paid, so the day rate has to cover them.
Can I use this to check a quote?
Yes. Enter the income you want and compare the day rate to what you are quoting. If your rate is lower, you will need more billable days to reach the same income.
Between clients. Officially research.