ARDOTOOLS

Freelancer Rate Calculator

Calculate a sustainable freelance hourly rate from income goals, expenses, billable time, reserves, and working weeks.

Inputs

Result

Planning estimate only. Replace assumptions with your real costs, contracts, taxes, and market conditions.

How it works

  1. Start from what you need to take home

    Your target annual income after tax, not your old salary.

  2. Subtract the time you cannot bill

    Admin, pitching, holidays and sick days. Most freelancers bill well under half their week.

  3. Add what employment used to cover

    Tax, pension, insurance, equipment, downtime between contracts.

Who this is for

Going freelance

Converting a salary into an hourly rate one-for-one is the most common way to end up earning less.

Raising your rate

Seeing the arithmetic makes the conversation with a client easier to have.

Quoting a fixed price

Multiply a defensible hourly rate by an honest estimate, rather than picking a round number.

Checking a retainer

Divide the retainer by the hours it really consumes and compare.

Questions

Why is the rate so much higher than my old salary divided by 2,080?
Because that division assumes every working hour is billable and that someone else is paying your tax, pension, holiday, sick leave and equipment. None of that is true once you are freelance.
What billable share should I use?
Be pessimistic. Sixty percent is a good year for most solo freelancers once pitching, admin and invoicing are counted. If you have never measured it, start at 50–60% rather than 80%.
What is the buffer for?
Gaps between contracts, a client who pays late, a month you cannot work. It is not profit; it is the reason a quiet month is not an emergency.
Why can the result disappear?
If your tax and buffer percentages add up to 100% or more, there is nothing left to pay yourself and no rate solves it. The tool says so rather than showing a meaningless number.