Freelance Hourly to Salary Converter
Freelancers don't bill 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year. Convert your target salary into a realistic freelance hourly rate based on true billable hours.
Don't count admin/marketing time.
Weeks you take entirely off per year.
Equivalent Annual Gross
Total freelance revenue before taxes
Based on 1,200 total billable hours per year.
The Full-Time Salary Comparison
A freelance gross of $60,000 does not equal a W2 employee salary of exactly $60,000.
*Freelancers pay higher self-employment taxes and must cover their own health insurance, retirement, software, and hardware. We estimate your true "employee equivalent" purchasing power is roughly 30% lower than your gross freelance revenue.
The 2080-Hour Myth
The most common mistake new freelancers make is dividing their target salary by 2,080. (There are 52 weeks in a year, and 40 hours in a standard workweek. 52 × 40 = 2080).
If you want to make $100,000 a year, you divide $100,000 by 2,080, which equals $48/hour. So you charge clients $48/hour. Six months later, you realize you're exhausted and broke. Why? Because no freelancer bills 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
What Are "Billable Hours"?
As a freelancer, you run a business. You have to send emails, write proposals, pitch clients, go to networking events, follow up on unpaid invoices, and do your taxes. All of this time is unbillable. You don't get paid for it.
A highly efficient freelancer might bill 25 to 30 hours a week. The remaining 10 to 15 hours are spent running the actual business. If you use the calculator above with 25 billable hours and 4 weeks of vacation, that $100,000 goal suddenly requires an hourly rate of $83/hour, not $48/hour.