salary to freelance rate calculator
Thinking of going freelance, or wondering if your rate really matches your old paycheck? Enter a salary and this works out the hourly, daily and monthly rate you'd need to charge once benefits, taxes and unpaid time are on your tab.
The gross annual salary you earn now, or the one you're aiming to replace.
Holidays, PTO and sick days, in weeks. As a freelancer you fund these yourself, so they come out of your billable weeks.
Realistic hours you can actually bill after admin, marketing and pitching.
Add this on top of your salary to cover what an employer used to help pay for, like health insurance, retirement, extra taxes, and slow-month savings.
Your yearly cost of doing business. Includes software, subscriptions, tools, co-working space, hardware, and training costs.
Convert your salary
Change any input to see your equivalent freelance rates.
why your salary isn't your freelance rate
The most common freelance pricing mistake is quoting your old hourly pay. A $60,000 salary looks like about $29/hour, but as an employee you also received paid holidays, health insurance, retirement contributions and the employer's half of payroll taxes, plus you were paid for a full 40-hour week.
Freelancing strips all of that away. You fund the benefits, pay extra self-employment tax, get no paid leave, and can only bill a fraction of your hours. Match the salary on paper and you'll quietly take a pay cut.
This salary-to-freelance calculator adds those costs back so your rate reflects what it takes to survive as a freelancer. Once you have your baseline hourly target, you can convert it into client proposals and capacity limits:
- Per-word & per-page rates: Use the per-word rate calculator to turn your baseline hourly rate into per-word, per-page, and per-1,000-word pricing.
- Fixed-fee scopes: Use the project quote calculator to price deliverables with discovery, SME interviews, and revision rounds.
- Weekly capacity: Use the writing workload calculator to check how many active client projects you can sustainably handle.
Ready for the full breakdown? Read our complete guide to freelance writing rates →
This Salary to Freelance Rate Calculator provides estimates only and does not constitute financial, tax or legal advice. By using this tool, you agree that you are solely responsible for your business and pricing decisions, and the creators are not liable for any outcomes resulting from its use.
FAQs on calculating your salary to freelance rate
What is the formula to convert a salary to a freelance hourly rate?
The standard formula to convert an annual salary into a sustainable freelance hourly rate is:
Salary-to-Freelance Hourly Rate = (Target Salary + Benefits + Operating Expenses + Tax Reserve) ÷ Annual Billable Hours
For example, to match a $60,000 salary with 25% benefits ($15,000), $5,000 expenses, and a 25% tax buffer ($20,000) across 1,200 annual billable hours (25 hrs/week for 48 weeks), you need to charge approximately $83–$87/hour.
Why use 1,200 billable hours instead of 2,080?
A standard full-time employee works 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks) and gets paid for holidays, sick leave, and internal meetings. A freelancer only gets paid for billable client work, with 30–50% of the week spent on pitching, admin, invoicing, and marketing. Assuming 25 billable hours a week and 4 weeks of unpaid time off leaves roughly 1,200 billable hours a year.
How do I convert a salary into a freelance rate?
Don’t just divide your salary by 2,080 hours, because that badly underprices you. A freelance rate has to also cover the benefits and payroll taxes your employer used to pay, the paid time off you no longer get, your business expenses, and the fact that you can’t bill 40 hours a week. This calculator grosses your salary up for all of that and spreads it across your real billable hours.
Why is my freelance rate so much higher than my old salary?
Because a salary is only part of what your employer spent on you. On top of it they covered health insurance, retirement contributions, the employer half of payroll taxes, equipment, software and paid holidays, often 25 to 40% more than the salary itself. As a freelancer you fund all of that, so a rate that looks higher than your salary frequently nets you the same or less.
How many billable hours should I assume?
Fewer than you'd think. Full-time freelancers rarely bill 40 hours a week; pitching, admin, invoicing and marketing eat a big chunk. Most land around 20 to 30 billable hours, which is the range this calculator defaults to. The fewer hours you can bill, the higher each one has to be.
What should the “benefits, tax & buffer uplift” be?
It’s the percentage on top of your salary that covers everything you now self-fund: health insurance, retirement, the extra self-employment tax freelancers pay, and a savings buffer for slow months. 25 to 40% is a sensible range. Go higher if you need strong health coverage or want a bigger cushion.
Should I start from my old salary or my income goal?
This one starts from a salary you want to match. The freelance writing rate calculator starts from your income goals and expenses and helps you turn that baseline into actual client pricing. Use this to sanity-check “can freelancing match my job?”, then move into your project pricing workflow.
