Personal Finance Blog
  •  About
  •  Best Posts
  •  Products
  •  Budget
  •  Invest
  •  Books
  •  Minimalism
  •  Help
  •  Contact
Home โ€บ Career โ€บ How much should I charge as a freelancer?
Career, Money

How much should I charge as a freelancer?

To figure out how much you’d charge per hour, ask yourself:

How much would you normally get at a job as a base salary?

Take that amount, double it, and divide by 2000, and that’s how much you should charge per hour.

Or, take your given salary and divide it by 1000.

This calculation takes into account that freelancers work 50% of the year (the doubling part), and the year is represented by 2000 hours.

From there, you have a wiggle room of about $10 either way.

EXAMPLE: You could earn $30,000 at your job

$30,000 x 2 = $60,000

$60,000 / 2000 hours = $30/hour

That’s how much you should charge per hour.

You could also take your given salary and divide it by 10000.

$30,000 / 1000 = $30/hour

Start there, and then either raise or lower your prices if business is not rolling in.


Love this? Please help me share it!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Disclosure: Save. Spend. Splurge. uses affiliate links from Shopstyle and Amazon. If you click on a link, I could get a small commission, typically a few cents. Thank you for your kind support!
Billing Career Entrepreneurship Freelancing How much to charge Invoicing

Post navigation

  • ← I did it. I GOT A CONTRACT.
  • In the world of Save. Spend. Splurge. →

Related posts

Stop doing female-oriented busywork at the office

Career Advice: Don’t say “No”.

Ask Sherry: On buying a 1-bedroom apartment with 1 child and living arrangements

20 thoughts on “How much should I charge as a freelancer?”

  1. Anna says:
    August 23, 2014 at 12:33 AM

    Great tip for if I start my own consulting business after college and many years of work (:

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 23, 2014 at 2:04 AM

      Thanks!!

      Reply
  2. dojo says:
    August 20, 2014 at 8:44 AM

    Excellent idea to make the calculations. My reasoning was similar and it looks like we’re close to my numbers.

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 21, 2014 at 2:04 AM

      It’s a good rule of thumb to see if freelancing is worth it.

      Reply
  3. Lisa E. @ Lisa vs. the Loans says:
    August 13, 2014 at 3:54 PM

    Interesting! Keeping this in the back of my mind for if/when I start my own thang ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 13, 2014 at 5:42 PM

      Glad to help ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
  4. Athena says:
    August 10, 2014 at 5:16 PM

    I usually put aside at least 20% for taxes!

    Thanks for this post! I really love that this could be used in general and is a good way to value my time. How I decided my rate was that I don’t have a lot of clients yet but even so, my time is valuable. I decided to use the rate that I earn on the side at my part time job and so far it’s transferred over well. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 10, 2014 at 10:49 PM

      Whatever works ๐Ÿ™‚ I was just accounting for freelancers not working all the time

      Reply
  5. Potato says:
    August 9, 2014 at 12:20 PM

    In my case I have a full-time salaried job, so I fiddled with my freelance rates until I found a balance where I had just a little bit of extra work but not none. As it turns out, the end result is the same as your formula!

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 10, 2014 at 2:17 AM

      See? It works ๐Ÿ™‚

      It has to be worth it to freelance versus working on a salary and my formula takes that into account.

      Reply
  6. debt debs says:
    August 9, 2014 at 6:16 AM

    I thought the doubling part was to take into consideration the missing benefits of a salaried position. (Pension/RRSP match, medical, dental etc.).

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 9, 2014 at 8:47 AM

      *shrug* Pension/RRSP match is not that big of an amount and as a freelancer you can save for your own retirement a lot easier than with a company. Medical and Dental is maybe $1000 a year if that especially if you’re young

      For me, the doubling of the salary is to make sure that being an independent and not working 100% of the time is covered, and you can make at least as much money in your job as an employee but only able to work half the time on average.

      Reply
  7. cat eyes & skinny jeans says:
    August 8, 2014 at 10:37 AM

    I freelance for magazines and newspapers quite often where a set fee is already in place; therefore, I have never had to do these types of calculations myself.

    xx

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 8, 2014 at 1:18 PM

      Ahh. It all depends on the industry. ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
  8. Ree Klein says:
    August 8, 2014 at 10:33 AM

    I respectfully disagree with this approach. I think it depends on a lot of things. But most importantly if your last job had nothing to do with writing, for example, but you run a great blog that has loads of examples showing how well you write, don’t base your rate on your old job. That’s an apples to oranges comparison.

    Instead, take a look at what people are charging on sites like ODesk. You can find more than 7k blog/content writers asking between $20 and $30/hr and nearly 8k charging more than $30.

    And in response to Gia T., I advise being VERY conservative your first year. Hold 40% aside to cover your taxes. You can adjust the following year, but this practice will gain you two valuable things: First, you will have piece-of-mind that the money will be there come tax time and second, you will live on less and that means you can work on growing wealth.

    Cheers!
    Ree

    Reply
    • Gia T. says:
      August 8, 2014 at 12:54 PM

      @Ree Klein: Thanks for the info Ree!

      Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 8, 2014 at 1:19 PM

      For me, my calculation is in general for freelancing, not for writing specifically.

      I am a freelancer but not as a writer.

      For writing, you can look at what other people are charging, but if you are a freelancer (like I was) in an industry where you don’t really know any freelancers or don’t know WHAT to charge, this is a good calculation to use.

      Reply
  9. Gia T. says:
    August 8, 2014 at 1:49 AM

    I’m curious, though isn’t exactly on the same topic, but is there a formula or general rule for calculating how much you should set aside for taxes while working a freelance job, assuming the contractor doesn’t offer income tax withholding?

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      August 8, 2014 at 7:27 AM

      I am not sure how it works in the U.S., but my company is incorporated. Tax rate is ~20%.

      Reply
      • Gia T. says:
        August 8, 2014 at 12:55 PM

        @save. spend. splurge.: Thanks, good to know!

        Reply

Leave a Reply to Lisa E. @ Lisa vs. the Loans Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Stay in Touch!

Products by Sherry

Ebates.ca

In a nutshell…

Save. Spend. Splurge.
[ wealth. style. minimalism. ]
WHO: sherry at savespendsplurge.com
MOST DEBT: cleared $60K in 18 months
FAVOURITE DAY: payday
HATES: being late & lazy people
EATS: pho, fried chicken, sashimi
DRINKS: homemade matcha lattes
SLEEPS: on a 100% authentic cotton Japanese futon
SHOPS: Style & closet for sale here
WRITES: Author of Books on Amazon.
BEAUTY: raves about Paula's Choice
WEBHOSTS WITH: BlueHost
...but you can read more about me here, read my best posts here, or get in touch with me here, and of course, Ask me anything here

Disclosure

Save. Spend. Splurge. uses affiliate links from Shopstyle and Amazon. If you click on a link, I could get a small commission, typically a few cents. Thank you for your kind support!

Keep up to date with me!

Reading Matter

Money
Style
Minimalism
Career
Life
Travel


SUBSCRIBE

Be the first one to find out when we have new content posted!

Stay in Touch

Site: Privacy Policy

The Budgeting Tool

About Me

I am aย wealth-obsessed,ย style-focused,ย minimalist.

I got out of $60,000 of debt in 18 months withย The Budgeting Tool which I now sell online and donate its net proceeds to charity, along with The Investing Tool.

I've also authored two books: Start a Blog Like a Boss - Making $1000 USD a monthย & Invest your Money Like a Boss - In 4 Hours a Year.

I earn like a princess when I work but am trying hard to live like a duchess instead by not spending all of it.

The rest of the time I relax and enjoy the time off by traveling, although traveling has been on hold lately with the arrival of Little Bun, my rambunctious, ever-hungry little boy.

Welcome.

©2019 Save. Spend. Splurge.. All rights reserved.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.