True Hourly Rate Calculator - What You Actually Earn as a Freelancer
See the real hourly rate you earn after taxes, health, tools, retirement and unpaid admin
How it works
- 1Enter your billed rate
The hourly rate you invoice clients today.
- 2Add billable + unpaid admin hours
How many hours you actually bill each week, plus the unpaid hours you spend on sales, invoicing, learning and admin.
- 3Pick a country preset or customize
Pre-filled tax rate and health insurance for your country. Override any field for your exact situation.
- 4Read the true rate
The tool shows your real take-home per actual hour worked - usually 40 to 60% lower than your headline rate.
About True Hourly Rate Calculator - What You Actually Earn as a Freelancer
Free true hourly rate calculator for freelancers, contractors and consultants. Enter your billed rate and the tool subtracts taxes, health insurance, tool subscriptions, retirement savings and unpaid admin hours to show what you actually earn per hour of work. Country presets for US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and India. Runs entirely in your browser. True Hourly Rate Calculator - What You Actually Earn as a Freelancer on 712 Tools runs entirely inside your browser using modern JavaScript APIs - no server ever sees your data. That means instant results, complete privacy, and no upload limits.
Whether you need to see the real hourly rate you earn after taxes, health, tools, retirement and unpaid admin for a debugging session, a quick sanity check, or a production incident, this tool is free to use as many times as you need. There are no watermarks, no sign-up, and no ads inside the tool itself.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my true hourly rate so much lower than my billed rate?
Because taxes, health insurance, retirement, tool subscriptions and unpaid admin hours all come out of the rate before it becomes take-home. Most freelancers underestimate this by 30 to 50%.
Are the country presets accurate?
They are reasonable averages for a mid-earning self-employed person. Your exact tax and health costs depend on state or province, deductions, dependents and coverage tier. Adjust the fields to match your situation, or ask a local accountant.
What counts as unpaid admin hours?
Any time you spend on your business that you cannot bill a client for: sales calls, proposals, contracts, invoicing, chasing payment, bookkeeping, learning, marketing, and time between projects.
Is any of this data uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent to a server.
Read more
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