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Finance & business

Freelance salary / day rate calculator

Calculate a target freelance day rate from your desired net income, expenses and billable days.

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Freelance salary / day rate

Set your target net income and activity assumptions to get an indicative day rate.

Target day rate—
Indicative hourly rate—
Required monthly revenue—
Billable days / month—
Indicative annual revenue—

Why use this tool?

This calculator estimates a freelance day rate from your target monthly net income, business expenses, contributions and actual billable days.

100% local and secure

Your data stays on your device and is never sent to our servers.

Smart processing

Calculate and compare financial scenarios with clear indicators and explicit formulas.

Supported formats

Amounts, rates, terms and financial assumptions depending on the calculator.

Save time

Get a clean, ready-to-use result in seconds without installing software or configuring a complex workflow.

Fonctionnement

How does this tool work?

Required monthly revenue covers the target net income, expenses and estimated contributions.

Billable days are calculated from working days and the billable percentage.

The day rate then divides required revenue by the number of billable days.

The calculation separates your personal income target from business expenses, then accounts for an overall contribution rate before spreading the required revenue across only the days you can actually bill. This makes it easy to test the effect of non-billable time and avoids setting a day rate by simply dividing a monthly salary target by all working days.

Use cases

Set your day rate

Determine a rate consistent with your income target.

Test your utilization rate

Measure how non-billable days affect your rate.

Prepare a negotiation

Estimate the minimum rate needed to preserve your income target.

Guide

How to use this tool

  1. 1

    Set your target income

    Enter the monthly net amount you want to keep.

  2. 2

    Add expenses and contributions

    Enter your business costs and an estimated overall contribution rate.

  3. 3

    Estimate billable days

    Enter your working days and the share you can actually invoice.

  4. 4

    Review the target rate

    The day rate, hourly rate and required revenue are calculated automatically.

Tips and best practices

  • Allow room for holidays, prospecting, administration, training and gaps between contracts.
  • Use a contribution rate that reflects your own situation instead of relying on a generic default.
  • Test several billable-day percentages because small utilization changes can materially affect the required day rate.

Frequently asked questions

What is a freelance day rate?

It is the amount invoiced for one day of freelance work.

Why are not all working days billable?

Prospecting, administration, training, holidays and gaps between contracts reduce the number of days you can invoice.

Does this replace a tax or legal-status simulator?

No. The contribution rate is configurable on purpose: the result is a planning estimate, not an official tax or social-security calculation.

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