Freelance Daily Rate
Set a daily rate that covers your target income, overheads and profit.
About Freelance Daily Rate
Your daily rate must first cover your income target, then absorb overhead and profit margins, because not every working day is billable or profitable. Setting rates without accounting for non-billable time and overhead is why many freelancers work full-time yet under-earn.
Formula
Freelance Daily Rate
Daily rate = target income / billable days / (1 - overhead) / (1 - profit)
- overhead
- Non-billable business costs as a share
Worked example
With the default values below, Freelance Daily Rate returns Daily Rate of $534.76. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Target annual income
- 80,000
- Billable days per yearminimum 1
- 220
- Overheadaccepts 0–80 %
- 20 %
- Profit targetaccepts 0–80 %
- 15 %
Results
- Daily Rate
- $534.76
- Weekly Rate
- $2,673.80
- Annual Revenue
- $117,647.06
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Freelance Daily Rate
- 3Daily Rate= 534.76
- 4Weekly Rate= 2,673.80
- 5Annual Revenue= 117,647.06
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or fees or charges into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Freelance Daily Rate calculated?
Daily rate = target income / billable days / (1 - overhead) / (1 - profit) Your daily rate must first cover your income target, then absorb overhead and profit margins, because not every working day is billable or profitable.
Why does Freelance Daily Rate matter?
Setting rates without accounting for non-billable time and overhead is why many freelancers work full-time yet under-earn.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 4 inputs: Target annual income, Billable days per year, Overhead, Profit target. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.