Know what your freelance business needs to make.
Build a financial plan around the income you actually want. Account for expenses, taxes, vacation, and realistic billable hours before deciding what to charge.
Example plan
Independent designer
Annual take-home
$0
Annual business costs
$0
Hourly floor
$0
Recommended
$74
Day rate
$0
0+
Plans built
$0/hr
Avg. rate increase found
0+
Professions covered
$0
Cost, no account needed
Financial planner
Build your freelance plan.
Tell SoloLedger what you want to earn and how you operate. Your target rate is calculated from the entire financial picture—not just a salary number.
Plan the business behind your income goal.
Start with what you want to take home. We'll work backward through taxes, expenses, time off, billable capacity, revenue, and pricing to build a practical freelance financial plan.
Start with a scenario, then customize the numbers.
Build your financial plan
Enter your goals and operating assumptions to calculate the revenue and rate your business needs.
What you want to personally keep after estimated taxes and business expenses.
Software, equipment, insurance, accounting, marketing, and other operating costs.
Only count time clients realistically pay you for—not proposals, admin, marketing, or unpaid meetings.
At 25 billable hours per week, you have roughly 15 hours each week for proposals, admin, sales, meetings, bookkeeping, and other non-billable work.
Weeks you plan to be away from billable client work.
Starting estimate for United States. Adjust this based on your own situation.
Tax calculations are estimates based on the percentage you provide. They are not a tax return, tax advice, or a substitute for advice from a qualified tax professional.
Based on your current assumptions
Recommended annual revenue
Revenue target designed to support your income goal while adding a 20% operating safety margin and local market adjustment.
Your income goal and billable workload create a realistic starting point for a sustainable freelance business.
Your plan at a glance
The numbers that matter most when planning your freelance business.
Where your required revenue goes
Your minimum revenue target must cover personal income, estimated taxes, and business operating expenses.
Can your schedule support the goal?
Your revenue target is directly connected to how much client-billable work you can realistically complete.
Your safety margin
Your recommended pricing target creates additional annual revenue above the minimum required to support your financial goal.
Turn the annual goal into a working plan
Your United States freelance business needs to generate $134,400 per year.
That supports your $75,000 take-home goal, accounts for $5,000 in business expenses and your estimated 28% tax rate, while including a 20% operating safety margin.
The model
Your rate is the output. Your financial plan is the starting point.
A sustainable freelance rate has to support more than your paycheck. SoloLedger works backward from your desired take-home income and accounts for the costs of operating your business.
Start with take-home income
Decide how much money you want available for yourself after taxes and business costs.
Add the cost of running the business
Include software, insurance, equipment, accounting, marketing, and other annual operating expenses.
Protect time that cannot be billed
Vacation and non-billable time reduce your available earning capacity. Your rate needs to account for that.
Convert the plan into a rate
The result gives you a minimum rate, a recommended rate, daily equivalent, and annual revenue targets.
More tools
Useful numbers for the business behind your work.
Starting points
Start with your profession.
Use a pre-configured model as a starting point, then adjust the numbers to match your own business.
Business infrastructure
Tools worth having in your stack.
Financial products and services that can help you operate the business behind your freelance work.
FreshBooks
Invoicing & Accounting
Track billable hours, expense write-offs, and send professional invoices.
Wise Business
Banking
Receive cross-border client payments with transparent exchange rates.
Novo Business Banking
Banking
Free FDIC-insured business checking built for freelancers and solo LLCs.
Keeper Tax
Taxes
Automatically scan bank statements to uncover Schedule C tax deductions.
Bonsai
Contracts & Legal
Vetted freelance contracts, e-signatures, client proposals, and invoicing.
Gusto Payroll
Payroll
Automate contractor 1099 filings and run payroll for solo S-Corporations.
ZenBusiness
LLC Formation
Register your Single-Member LLC or obtain an official business EIN.
Deel
Contracts & Legal
Generate international contractor agreements compliant in 150+ countries.
Still deciding what to charge?
Build your plan