Find out what you need to charge per hour to hit your income goals. Add your target income, realistic billable hours, business expenses, and taxes to see whether you are underpricing yourself.
Inputs
Keep this grounded in reality. Most freelancers cannot bill every hour they work.
A lot of freelancers overestimate this. Twenty to thirty billable hours is common.
Use a realistic number after vacations, admin time, and slower periods are accounted for.
Taxes matter. If you skip them, your target rate will usually be too low.
Use reverse mode to see what a lower or higher rate really means for your year.
Live Results
Suggested hourly rate
You should charge: $107.14/hr
To earn $80,000.00/year working 25 billable hours per week
Reality check
To earn $80,000.00/year, you need to bill about 1,200 hours per year
Status
Strong positioning. Make sure your niche, value, and client expectations support this rate.
Breakdown
Reverse scenario
At $50.00/hr, you will make about $32,000.00/year
What It Means
A real hourly rate has to cover more than your personal income. It also needs to absorb taxes, software, admin time, non-billable work, and the natural gaps between projects. That is why a rate that sounds high at first can still be completely reasonable.
Billable Reality
Freelancers rarely bill forty hours a week. Sales calls, revisions, admin work, marketing, and downtime all eat into your schedule. If you price yourself as if every working hour is billable, you will usually undercharge.
Good Rate
That depends on niche, geography, and positioning, but the right question is not whether a number feels high. It is whether that number supports the income you want after expenses and taxes. A cheap rate that cannot sustain the business is not a good rate.
Worked Examples
A modest target can still require more than expected once taxes and downtime are included.
Fewer billable hours per week pushes the required hourly rate up quickly.
Higher positioning often reflects a narrower niche and a lower billable-hour ceiling.
Hourly Rate FAQ
Start with the annual income you want, add your business expenses, adjust upward for taxes, and divide that total by your realistic billable hours per year. That gives you a rate based on the business you want, not just a guess.
For many freelancers, twenty to thirty billable hours per week is more realistic than forty. The rest of the week often disappears into sales, admin, revisions, project management, and unpaid work.
Because freelancers do not keep every dollar they invoice. Taxes, overhead, and non-billable time all push the real required rate up. A number that feels high on paper can simply be the honest price of sustainability.
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