Freelance Income Calculator
What a freelance workload actually delivers as take-home income after costs and tax.
Freelance revenue and freelance income are different numbers. Between them sit your business costs and the tax you owe, and both arrive later than the money that produced them.
Enter your rate, the hours you can bill and your costs, and this calculator shows the revenue, the costs, the estimated tax and the income you actually keep.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Your rate per hour, Billable hours per week, Working weeks per year, Total hours worked per week, Annual business costs, Effective tax rate, Your personal costs per month
- What you get
- Annual revenue, Net income per year, Net income per month, Effective income per hour worked, Monthly surplus over your costs
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Freelance Income Calculator
- 1 Enter Your rate per hour
- 2 Enter Billable hours per week (hours)
- 3 Enter Working weeks per year (weeks)
- 4 Enter Total hours worked per week (hours) - Including admin, marketing and everything you cannot invoice.
- 5 Enter Annual business costs
- 6 Enter Effective tax rate
- 7 Enter Your personal costs per month - What you need to live on, to test whether the income covers it.
- 8 Press Calculate. You get Annual revenue, Net income per year, Net income per month, Effective income per hour worked, Monthly surplus over your costs, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 9 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
$75 an hour, 28 billable hours from a 42 hour week
A specialist rate with a large share of the week going on work that cannot be invoiced.
You enter
- Your rate per hour
- $75.00
- Billable hours per week
- 28 hours
- Working weeks per year
- 46 weeks
- Total hours worked per week
- 42 hours
- Annual business costs
- $9,000.00
- Effective tax rate
- 30%
- Your personal costs per month
- $3,500.00
You get
- Annual revenue
- $96,600.00
- Net income per year
- $61,320.00
- Net income per month
- $5,110.00
- Effective income per hour worked
- $31.74
- Monthly surplus over your costs
- $1,610.00
Billing 28 hours a week for 46 weeks produces $96,600 of revenue. Costs of $9,000 leave $87,600 of profit, and tax at 30% takes $26,280, so the net income is $61,320 a year or $5,110 a month. That is $31.74 for every hour you actually work, because only 66.7% of your week is billable. After $3,500 of personal costs each month, $1,610 a month is left.
$40 an hour with 30 billable hours from a 40 hour week
A lower rate with a fuller calendar and cheaper overheads.
You enter
- Your rate per hour
- $40.00
- Billable hours per week
- 30 hours
- Working weeks per year
- 44 weeks
- Total hours worked per week
- 40 hours
- Annual business costs
- $4,800.00
- Effective tax rate
- 20%
- Your personal costs per month
- $2,200.00
You get
- Annual revenue
- $52,800.00
- Net income per year
- $38,400.00
- Net income per month
- $3,200.00
- Effective income per hour worked
- $21.82
- Monthly surplus over your costs
- $1,000.00
The revenue is $52,800 and, after $4,800 of costs, the profit is $48,000. Tax at 20% takes $9,600, leaving $38,400 a year or $3,200 a month, which is $21.82 per hour worked. Three quarters of the week is billable and costs take 9.1% of revenue, so the lower rate still leaves $1,000 a month over personal costs.
Guides that go with it
How Much Should You Charge as a Freelancer?
Most freelancers set their rate by guessing, then wonder why the month never quite adds up. By the end of this guide you will be able to build a defensible hourly rate from your real costs and income…
How Much Should I Spend on a Car Based on My Income?
You can work out a realistic car budget in about 20 minutes with a pen, a calculator, and three or four numbers you probably already know. By the end of this guide you will have a monthly car payment…
How Much of Your Salary Should Go to Rent?
You can work out a defensible rent ceiling in about fifteen minutes with nothing more than your payslip and a calculator. By the end of this guide you will know your gross and take-home pay, the rent…
Frequently asked questions
Why is the effective income per hour so much lower than my rate?
Because the page divides your net income by every hour you work, not only the billable ones. Admin, invoicing, marketing, learning and chasing late payers all consume hours that no client pays for, and the billable share line tells you how large that gap is.
Two freelancers on the same rate can end up in very different places. A higher rate with a calendar half full of non-billable work can leave less per hour of your life than a modest rate with a fuller book, which is what makes this figure the useful one for comparing two ways of working.
Does the tax figure include national insurance and pension contributions?
No. The calculator applies a single effective rate to your profit and treats the result as the tax bill. Social contributions, a pension, a student loan repayment and any local tax are not separate lines, so the net income shown is higher than what actually reaches your account if any of those apply.
To get closer, add those costs into the effective rate you enter. If your income tax rate is 20% and contributions run at another 9% of profit, entering a rate near 29% describes the total better than entering 20% and being surprised later.
Are business costs deducted before or after tax?
Business costs come off revenue first, and the tax rate is applied to what remains. That order matters: $9,000 of costs on $96,600 of revenue reduces the taxable profit to $87,600, and at a 30% rate the tax is $26,280 rather than $28,980.
The costs line here is only what you enter. Equipment bought once, a home office share, software paid annually and a pension contribution are all real costs that many people forget, and each one either reduces the tax or is money already spent. Listing them properly is worth more than shopping for a lower rate.
How do I use this to set a rate I can actually live on?
Work backwards from your personal costs. Enter the monthly costs you need to cover, and the monthly surplus line shows what is left after tax and business costs. If it is negative or thin, the rate, the billable hours or the costs have to change, and the rate is usually the easiest of the three to raise.
Raise it in one step rather than gradually, because every increase is also a test of whether clients value the work. Check the emergency fund position in the Emergency Fund Calculator before relying on a rate that has not yet been paid for a full year.
Terms used here
Short, plain-language definitions of the words this calculator uses.