How to set your freelance rate (the math most people get wrong)

A practical guide — 6 min read

Most freelancers set their rate the same way: they think of a number that sounds okay, maybe glance at what someone in a forum charges, and go with it. Then a year later the money doesn't add up and they can't figure out why they're busy and still broke.

The problem is almost never that you're charging "too little" in some vague sense. It's that the number was never connected to what your life actually costs to run. Here's the math that fixes that — and it takes about two minutes.

The number that quietly bankrupts freelancers

Here's the trap. You want to take home $60,000 a year, so you reach for the employee mental model: $60,000 ÷ 2,080 working hours = about $29/hour. Feels reasonable. It's a disaster.

That $29 ignores two things that employees never have to think about, because an employer absorbs them:

• Costs and tax. Software, insurance, a laptop, retirement you fund yourself, and the big one — tax, often 25–35% of what you earn. Your $60k take-home really needs somewhere around $85k of revenue to survive contact with reality.
• You don't bill 2,080 hours. Nobody does. After holidays, sick days, admin, invoicing, sales calls, and the weeks when work just doesn't come in, most solo freelancers bill 1,000–1,200 hours a year. Not 2,080.

The math that actually works

Your real hourly floor is simple once you use honest inputs:

Run the same freelancer through it properly:

That's nearly three times the naive $29 number. And it's not you being greedy — it's the rate that simply keeps you solvent. Charging $29 doesn't make you "affordable." It makes you unpaid.

Three inputs, and how to be honest about each

1. The income you actually want to take home

Not "what I earned at my job." What you need and want, per year, after tax — rent, food, savings, the life you're building this for. Be honest and slightly ambitious. This is the whole point of the exercise.

2. Costs + tax set-aside

Add up your yearly business costs (software, insurance, equipment, retirement) and then add your tax set-aside. If you don't know your tax rate yet, 25–35% of revenue is a safe placeholder. This is the number people forget, and it's the one that hurts most.

3. Your real billable hours

Start from 2,080 and subtract reality: holidays, admin, sales, sick days, and the gaps between projects. For most solos the honest answer lands between 1,000 and 1,200 hours. Using 2,080 here is the single fastest way to underprice yourself.

Hourly floor vs. what you quote the client

One important distinction: the number you just calculated is for you, not for the client. You rarely want to quote raw hourly rates — they invite clients to watch the clock and haggle. Instead, quote flat project prices, but back-calculate every one of them from your hourly floor. Estimate the hours honestly, multiply by your floor, add a margin for scope creep, and present a fixed price.

That way the client gets a clean number, and you never accidentally take work that pays below what your life costs.

→ Run your numbers in the free rate calculator