Freelance UX designers often quote a project fee that, once research, testing, revisions, and stakeholder calls are counted, pays far below the headline number. This calculator works backward from your target take-home to the hourly floor your project quotes must clear.
| Billable hours per year | — |
| Gross revenue you must bill | — |
| Estimated tax at your rate | — |
| Business expenses recovered | — |
| Resulting take-home (check) | — |
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 (a tax professional can help you estimate it). Figures are estimates for planning only.
| Typical low | $50/hr |
| Common average | $95/hr |
| Specialized / certified high | $200/hr |
Benchmarks are gathered from public salary and marketplace data and refreshed periodically. Treat them as orientation — your required rate from the calculator above is the number that matters for your situation.
The most common pricing mistake is dividing a target salary by 2,080 hours. That ignores three things every freelancer carries: self-employment tax, business expenses (design and prototyping tools, user-testing and research platforms, a portfolio site, stock and component libraries, professional development), and the large share of the week that is never billable. This calculator builds all three in, then solves for the rate that leaves you with the take-home you entered.
US freelance UX designers commonly bill $50–$200/hour, with mid-level near $78 and senior or specialized designers above $130. Project pricing is common, but set your hourly floor here so research- and revision-heavy projects don't slip below cost.
Per-project pricing rewards efficiency and is easier for clients to approve, but UX scope is notoriously fluid. Compute the hourly floor here, estimate total hours including research and testing, and add a revision buffer before quoting a fixed fee.
Discovery, interviews, and usability testing are billable work that fixed quotes often swallow. Either itemize them or lower the billable percentage above so your rate covers the unbilled hours these phases consume.