Most freelancers undercharge because they divide a salary by 2,080 hours. You can't bill every hour. Here's the rate you actually need.
It starts with what you want to keep, not a made-up hourly number. It adds your yearly business expenses, grosses the total up to cover tax, then divides by the hours you can realistically bill in a year (not all 2,080). Finally it adds a safety margin for the real world — scope creep, late payers and quiet months.
A full-time employee is paid for 2,080 hours a year. A freelancer isn't: you take time off, and a big chunk of every week goes to admin, marketing and unpaid calls. If you can only bill 25 hours a week and take 6 weeks off, you're billing roughly 1,150 hours — less than half. Price for the hours you can actually sell.
Knowing your rate is step one. Getting it — on time — is step two. Send a professional invoice or quote the day you deliver, use a contract and a deposit, and follow up on a schedule. Our Get-Paid Toolkit has the contract, proposal template, follow-up email scripts and an income tracker.
Most full-time freelancers bill 20–30 hours. New freelancers often bill less while they build a pipeline. Track it for a few weeks and use your real number.
Use this hourly rate as your floor, then quote projects as a fixed price (estimate the hours × your rate, add your margin). Clients prefer a clear project price, and you keep the upside when you work fast.
No — the calculation runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.