Most rate calculators run forward: you enter your hours and they tell you a rate. This one runs backward. Tell it the take-home you want and the rate the market will actually pay you, and it shows how many billable hours a week — and how many clients — you need, and whether that even fits in a normal work week.
| Gross revenue you must bill | — |
| Required billable hours / year | — |
| Required billable hours / week | — |
| Total hours / week (incl. non-billable) | — |
| Clients needed (at your avg) | — |
This tool does math on the numbers you enter. It is not tax or financial advice and contains no built-in tax tables — enter your own effective rate. "Feasible" is a rough guide based on a roughly 40-hour week; only you know your sustainable capacity.
Picking a rate first and hoping the hours work out is how freelancers end up working 55-hour weeks for a middling income. Working backward from the take-home you actually want exposes the truth immediately: at a given rate, your income goal implies a fixed number of billable hours, and once you gross those up for the unbillable half of the week, you either have a feasible plan or a rate that is too low. When the required week blows past 45–50 hours, the answer is almost never "work more" — it is "raise the rate," because rate and required hours move in exact inverse proportion. Use the result above as a reality check before you take on the next client at the old number.
Work backward: gross revenue = expenses + target take-home / (1 − tax rate). Divide by your hourly rate for billable hours per year, then by working weeks for billable hours per week, then by your billable percentage for the total hours you actually have to work. The calculator does all of it.
If the total hours per week land comfortably under about 40, the goal is feasible at that rate. Past 45–50, it is only reachable by overworking — raise the rate, cut expenses, or trim the take-home target. Raising the rate is the highest-leverage lever.
Estimate the billable hours one typical client takes per week and divide your required weekly billable hours by it. Fewer big clients mean less overhead but more risk; more small clients spread risk but add admin. Enter your average to see the count your goal implies.