Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator

How much to charge for freelancing services and how to calculate your freelance hourly rate are two of the most common doubts newbies have.

It depends on many factors, including your skills, experience, and the services you offer, as well as your freelance expenses and lifestyle goals.

This calculator doesn’t account for the first three factors mentioned above but it can give you a good estimate of what your baseline rate should be — then, you can continuously increase it as you gain experience.

Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator — How to Calculate Hourly Rate for Freelance

Here’s how to use the Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator:

1. Add your target annual salary

Add how much you want to make per year for your needs (like food, bills, kids and pets, etc.) and wants (like entertainment, clothing, travel, etc.).

2. Add how many billable work hours you can do per week

Add how many billable work hours you can spend doing client work per week.

Keep in mind that “billable work hours” don’t include searching for clients, marketing your business, or any other type of unpaid tasks.

3. Add the number of weeks you’ll take off per year

This calculator assumes you’ll take weekends off, so, each week represents five days.

If you don’t plan on taking full weeks off, add up your off or sick days and count each week as five days.

4. Add your monthly overhead costs

This includes software (e.g. Grammarly, Canva, your website hosting service, etc.), office space, marketing, subcontractors, and office supplies (e.g. laptop, desk, etc.), among others.

Your office supplies are on-time buys, not recurring expenses. But you can divide the total cost into twelve months.

Also, if you work from home you can claim some of your housing costs as business expenses.

Let’s say you work in a 200 sq. ft. office, in a 2,000 sq. ft. home — your office is 10% of the house area. You can consider 10% of your bills and housing expenses as overhead costs.

For context, most freelancers spend between $300 and $800 per month on overhead costs. If you don’t know how much it’ll cost you, yet, add an estimated value.

5. Add your monthly insurance costs

Add your personal and business insurance costs here. If you’re a digital nomad, you can add your travel insurance, as well.

You can set it to zero if you don’t pay for insurance (e.g. one of your family members’ health insurance covers you as well, you live in a country with free healthcare, etc.)

“The average national [US] cost for health insurance is $456 for an individual and $1,152 for a family per month.”

— eHealth

6. Add your yearly savings

Freelancers in the US (and possibly other countries) need to take care of their own retirement savings.

People who live in countries where that’s handled by the government should still aim to save 10 to 20% of their income.

It’s up to you how much you want to save and what for. Add your yearly savings to the sixth field.

7. Add your annual tax rate

This percentage is country-dependent. It also depends on the person, you may get some tax breaks for whatever reason.

Talk to an accountant to know exactly how much you need to save for tax payments.

If you don’t know how much you’ll have to pay, assume a tax rate of 20 to 30%.

And that’s it! Your hourly, weekly, monthly, and yearly rates will show up in the orange brackets.

Why This Is the Best Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator Out There

I checked a bunch of freelance rate calculators and they all made two mistakes.

The monthly and weekly rates they present are just the yearly salary divided by 12 or 52, respectively.

First of all, whether they divided a year by 52 weeks or a month by 4 weeks, that doesn’t give you the most precise results because a year has 52.143 weeks and a month has 4.333 weeks, on average.

And, most importantly, they didn’t account for your weeks off in the weekly and monthly rates — even the ones that asked you how many days/weeks off you’ll take.

If you take two weeks off, for example, your yearly income can’t be divided by 52.143 weeks to calculate your weekly rate; it has to be divided by 50.143.

If you planned your weekly or monthly rate based on those flawed values, and then took weeks off, you’d fall short of your yearly income — which could be insignificant or very significant depending on how many weeks you take off.

With this calculator, you know exactly how much you need to make per week and per month, and go on vacation worry-free.

See, mom? I didn’t waste my education. Now, I can make very precise calculators and tell people “trust me, I’m an engineer.”

Anyway, let me tell you a little bit more about how to set your freelance writing rates.

How Much to Charge for Freelance Writing?

Understanding how much to charge for freelance writing projects is one of the biggest challenges most newbies face.

Setting your initial rates is a major step you need to take to become a freelance writer.

👉 A common mistake new freelancers make is pricing their services based on what they make on their regular job.

When setting your freelance rate, you need to remember that there’s a lot of unpaid work involved (i.e. finding clients, marketing your business, emailing them back and forth, and so on).

Plus, you have to pay for all office supplies, utility bills, taxes, retirement savings, health insurance, software, and, sometimes, even an office space.

All these expenses and unpaid work need to be accounted for when setting your rates.

👉 You also have to look at the value you’re providing.

Companies who hire you save massively on overhead costs — it’d be much more expensive to hire in-house employees. Meanwhile, you’re providing just as much value — if not more!

👉 Another aspect you need to think about when pricing your services is your experience level.

That’s why it’s common for freelance writers to continuously increase their rates as they gain experience, testimonials, an online presence, and client demand.

TL;DR — How Much to Charge for Freelance Writing?

To price your freelance writing services, you need to consider:

• Your paid and unpaid work hours
• Your business’s overhead costs, health insurance, and retirement savings
• Your vacation and sick days
• The value you’re providing with your work
• The type of writing service you’re providing
• Your experience level

Let’s take a look at some different pricing models you can choose.

Freelance Writing Rates per Word — How Much Should I Charge per Word for Freelance Writing?

Charging per word is the second most common way freelance writers price their services.

You can figure out how many words you’re able to write per month or week, and convert your ideal gross salary into per-word rates.

➡️ Example: Let’s say you can write 20,000 words per month and your ideal monthly salary is $4,000. You’d have to charge at least $0.20 per word.

Alternatively, you could make an estimate of how many words you can write per hour, and divide your hourly rate by the number of words you write in an hour.

➡️ Example: Let’s say you can write 400 words per hour and your hourly rate is $50 — you’d have to charge at least $0.13/word.

Here’s how much freelance writers charge per word, based on experience level, according to ClearVoice:

Freelance Writing Rates per Hour — How Much Should a Freelance Writer Charge per Hour?

Freelance writers rarely charge by the hour — per-word and per-project rates are much more common.

All you have to do is set an hourly rate based on the value you got from the Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator, track the time it takes you to complete each job, and bill your clients.

There are plenty of time-tracking tools out there. Toggl and Clockify are popular among freelancers.

Here are the average hourly rates for writing, according to PayScale:

Freelance Writing Rates per Project — How Much Should a Freelance Writer Charge per Project?

Most freelance writers prefer to charge per-project fees.

Basically, you make an estimate of how long a given project will take you and price it based on your hourly rate.

You might be thinking “if I use my hourly rate as a baseline for project charging, why not just charge an hourly rate for writing?”

Well, there are three main advantages to charging per project:

1. It’s easier to present and sell your services

You can create a service menu that clearly shows your deliverables for each project type and the price.

This makes it easier for clients to visualize what you’ll do for them and how much it’ll cost.

2. You’ll make more money over time

If you priced your services hourly, you’d make less money as you gained experience and completed jobs faster.

Plus, once you get to very high rates, it’s harder to get clients to pay you $100/hour for a job that takes you four hours to complete than to charge a flat fee of $400 without them knowing how long it takes you, for example.

Don’t think of this as “scamming” clients or something like that — your work should be priced based on the value you provide, not how long it takes. This is another reason why charging per project is better.

3. Clients know exactly how much it’ll cost and you know how much you’ll make

Income unpredictability is sometimes a problem for freelance writers.

Knowing how much you’ll make over the next one to three months is a major plus when you charge per project.

Knowing their expenses over the following months is equally important for clients.

In addition, when you give an exact quote, you can charge a deposit upfront. This weeds out bad clients. You can collect between 30 and 100% of the project fee upfront.

The one con of charging per project is that some gigs may take you longer than you anticipated. But, generally speaking, it ends up evening out.

Other Ways to Price Your Freelance Writing Services

Charging per page is also possible but it’s not common at all. Still, it’s used for some specific writing types, like white paper writing.

Retainer fees are another option.

Basically, you charge a monthly fee to long-term clients for a set amount of writing work. This is the best way to guarantee a stable income.

Above, I said it’s better to price your services per project because it’s easier for clients to visualize everything you’ll do for them and how much it’ll cost.

But you can charge extra fees for deliverables outside of your normal project packages ⚠️

I charge a 20% fee for ghostwriting projects, for example. Let’s say I’m hired to write a ghostwritten blog post. If my normal price for that post was $400, I’d charge $480 because it’s ghostwritten.

I also charge an extra fee if clients want me to upload, format, and optimize images directly in their CMS, and for additional revisions, rewrites, or consultations. These are just a few examples.

🔥 You’re your own boss. Create a freelance writing business and pricing model that fits you.

How Much Should a Beginner Freelance Writer Charge?

Again, how much you should charge depends on many factors — even when you’re a beginner.

First, it depends on your freelance writing niche and the type of services you provide.

Some industries make more money than others, meaning businesses can pay you more. Also, some writing types provide more value to a business, meaning you’ll be paid higher rates.

A brand-new writer should charge at least $0.10 to $0.12 per word, but there are plenty of writers out there accepting $0.01 to $0.06 per word.

When it comes to hourly pay, Payscale says rates start at $12/hour while ZipRecruiter claims that rates start at $5/hour.

ZipRecruiter might have calculated that hourly rate based on paid + unpaid work hours. I say this because $5/hour is an eye-watering low rate — but it’s just my hypothesis.

In my opinion, new freelance writers should charge at least $15/hour, but, in the end, there’s no right or wrong answer to “how much should a beginner freelance writer charge?”

⚠️ It all depends on your niche, services, skills, and ability to market and sell your freelance writing services.

How Do Freelancers Get Paid?

There are many ways you can get paid as a freelancer. Some options include:

• Direct bank transfer
• Stripe
• PayPal
• Revolut
• Wise
• FreshBooks
• Cryptocurrency

To make sure getting paid is as easy as possible, you should give your clients at least two payment options.

With Stripe, PayPal, Wise, and FreshBooks you can send invoices as well. FreshBooks also allows you to track work hours per client and automatically send monthly invoices.

I recommend you set up an account on Stripe and PayPal since they’re the most used.

Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator — Key Takeaways

There are plenty of ways to price your services. Plus, rates range too much to give you an estimate of how much you should charge.

For some, having to set their own rates is a bit of a nightmare — but it shouldn’t be.

As a freelance writer, you have the freedom to create a career that finances the lifestyle you want to have.

Choose a profitable freelance writing niche, learn the skills you need to provide valuable services, slowly build up your experience and portfolio, and market yourself and your services properly.

That’s it.

Those are the four ingredients you need to have the power to decide how much you earn and how many hours you work per week.

Start building the life of your dreams, today 👇