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Freelance rate

Dividing a salary by 2,080 hours is how freelancers end up undercharging. You don't bill every working hour, you don't work every week, and the expenses and tax an employer used to absorb are now yours. Start from the income you actually want to keep, and this works backwards to the hourly rate you need to charge. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

How it works

The rate is the income you need to clear, divided by the hours you can actually sell. On the income side, your salary goal plus business expenses is what's left after tax, so it's grossed up by the tax rate to find the revenue the business has to bring in.

On the hours side, a year is 52 weeks minus the weeks off you take — holidays, vacation, sick days — and only the billable percentage of each week's working hours reaches a client. The rest is selling, admin, invoicing, and email: real work, but nobody pays for it directly. Most freelancers bill well under 100%, which is exactly why the salary-÷-2,080 shortcut leaves you short.

This is a floor for your pricing, not a market price. Charge what the work is worth to the client — but knowing this number means you'll know when a quote would quietly cost you money. It's a starting point, not financial advice.