Freelance web developers often anchor their rate to a former salary, which understates what they need once self-employment tax, tooling, and the unbillable hours spent on proposals, scoping, and maintenance are counted. This calculator starts from your target take-home and returns the hourly rate that actually supports it.
| 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 | $40/hr |
| Common average | $75/hr |
| Specialized / certified high | $150/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 (hosting and dev tooling, a code editor and CI subscriptions, a fast machine, error-monitoring and testing services, professional liability insurance), 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 web developers commonly bill $40–$150/hour, with a mid-market median near $75 and senior full-stack or specialized developers well above $120. Rather than copy a band, enter your income goal and realistic billable hours above for a number that covers your taxes and overhead.
Fixed bids reward speed but transfer scope risk to you; hourly protects you on fuzzy specs. Either way, set the hourly floor here first, then convert it to a fixed bid by estimating hours and adding a buffer for revisions and integration surprises.
Yes — ongoing maintenance is easy to give away. Many developers move it to a monthly retainer once a site ships. Use your computed hourly rate as the basis for that retainer rather than discounting it by default.