Start from what you want to keep. Work backwards to your rate.
Most rate advice says “add 30% for taxes” and calls it a day. This calculator runs your actual tax bill instead, then divides by the hours you can really bill.
Tax data last updated: July 2026. Sources & methodology
Your target
What should land in your pocket after taxes and expenses, per year.
Honest number — admin, marketing, and email don't bill.
Vacation, holidays, sick days, slow spells.
Software, gear, insurance, coworking — the cost of staying in business.
To clear $65,000 after tax, you need to bill about $90,141 across 1,200 hours.
- Gross revenue needed
- $90,141
- Estimated tax (2026)
- $17,141
- Business expenses
- $8,000
- Equivalent day rate (8 hrs)
- $601
Tax is estimated with real 2026federal brackets for a single filer, not a flat percentage. State tax and health insurance aren't in here — pad your rate accordingly. This is a floor, not a ceiling: charge what the market bears.
How this is calculated
You give us the take-home number, and we search for the gross revenue that produces it — running each guess through the same engine as our self-employment tax calculator (SE tax, federal brackets, QBI deduction) until the after-tax result matches your target. Then we divide by your real billable hours.
Those hours are where most freelancers fool themselves. Forty hours a week at your desk might be twenty-five you can invoice — the rest is proposals, email, bookkeeping, and finding the next client. Underestimating that gap is the single most common reason freelancers earn less than they did at their job.