Freelance Day Rate Calculator
Explain like I'm 5
Imagine you want to earn £50,000 a year. But you only work 220 days (the rest are weekends, holidays, and admin days). And sometimes you have no client for a couple of weeks. And you want some money in a pension. Add all that up, then divide by 220, and you get the daily price you need to charge.
Your required day rate
- Billable days per year–
- Pension contribution–
- Annual expenses–
- Subtotal needed–
- Downtime buffer–
- Total revenue required–
Rate summary
- Day rate–
- Half-day rate–
- Hourly rate (8hr day)–
- Weekly rate (5 days)–
- Monthly equivalent–
Show workings
Why most freelancers undercharge
The most common mistake is dividing a desired salary by 52 weeks to get a weekly rate, then by 5 to get a daily rate. That ignores everything: holiday, admin time, time between clients, pension, and the business costs that a salaried employee never thinks about. The result is a day rate that looks reasonable but leaves you underpaid.
The non-billable days alone knock 15–20% off your available capacity before you have charged a single client. Add expenses and downtime, and most freelancers need to charge 30–50% more than their equivalent salaried salary just to net the same.
What counts as a business expense?
Software subscriptions, hardware, professional indemnity insurance, an accountant (which you almost certainly need), training, co-working space, and any tools specific to your work. If you are contracting through a limited company, your accountant fees alone are likely £1,000–£2,000 per year.
Setting the downtime buffer
New freelancers building a client base should use 25–30%. Established freelancers with recurring clients can drop to 10–15%. If you have a single anchor client that guarantees a significant share of your time, you can model a lower buffer, but be careful about single-client dependency.
Related calculators
Day rates are one lever. The others sit here.
Common questions
How do I calculate my freelance day rate?
Start with your desired annual income, add business expenses and pension contributions, then add a buffer for gaps between clients. Divide the total by your billable days. This calculator works all of that out for you.
What is a realistic number of billable days per year?
Most freelancers work from a base of 260 weekdays. Subtract 25 days holiday, plus around 15 days for admin, training, networking, and unavoidable gaps, leaving around 220 billable days. Contractors on long back-to-back contracts may achieve closer to 230; those building a client base should plan for fewer.
Should I use my gross or net salary target?
This calculator works from your gross income target: what your business needs to earn before tax. If you have a net take-home figure in mind, use the UK Salary Tax Calculator to work backwards to the gross equivalent, then enter that figure here.
Why does the day rate include a downtime buffer?
Freelancers rarely have 100% utilisation. There are gaps between contracts, time spent pitching new business, and occasional slow periods. A 15% downtime buffer means that even if you only bill 85% of your available days, you still hit your income target.