Virtual assistants are especially prone to underpricing: hourly packages get benchmarked against employee wages that never carried self-employment tax, unpaid admin, or the cost of the tools you bring. This calculator starts from your target take-home and tells you what to actually charge.
| 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 | $18/hr |
| Common average | $28/hr |
| Specialized / certified high | $50/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 (scheduling and project tools, password manager, time tracker, a portion of internet/phone, professional email), 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 virtual assistants commonly charge $18–$50/hour depending on specialization (general admin at the low end; bookkeeping, paid-ads, or executive support at the top). Rather than copy a band, enter your target take-home and billable hours above to get a rate that actually covers your costs and taxes.
As a freelancer you pay both halves of self-employment tax, fund your own time off and tools, and only a fraction of your week is billable. The calculator makes those costs explicit, which is usually why the required rate lands well above an employee wage.
After admin, client communication, marketing, and breaks, many VAs bill 60–75% of their working hours. Lower the billable percentage above to see how non-billable time pushes your required rate up.