Most day rate calculators divide your target income by about 220 days and stop. The answer comes out too low because it ignores two things: the days you won't work at all (holidays, sick days, public holidays), and the days you'll work but can't bill (sales, admin, invoicing, learning). This calculator handles both, then gives you a day rate, a half-day rate, an hourly rate and a weekly rate you can quote. The formula is shown underneath, so you can check it yourself.
With the default numbers: (60,000 + 6,000) × 1.10 = 72,600 needed. 260 − 25 − 8 − 5 = 222 working days. 222 × 0.75 = 166.5 billable days. 72,600 ÷ 166.5 = 436.04 a day, or about 54.50 an hour over an 8-hour day. The same inputs with the naive "divide by 220" method give 330 a day, which is roughly 25% short. That shortfall is the unbilled time.
Of all the inputs, the non-billable percentage moves the result the most, and it's the one people guess most optimistically. Think about an ordinary month. How many days went to finding work (proposals, calls, portfolio updates), running the business (invoices, chasing payments, bookkeeping, email) and getting better (courses, tool setup)? None of that is billable, and all of it is necessary.
A quick way to estimate it: track one normal month in a simple spreadsheet, one row per day, marking each half-day as billable or not. If you can't track yet, start at 25–35% and adjust once you have real numbers. Newer freelancers with an empty pipeline usually sit at the high end, because more of their time goes to finding clients.
| Quote by | Works well when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Day | Work happens in focused blocks (workshops, design sprints, on-site or embedded work) | Agree what a "day" means (e.g. 7.5 hours) and whether travel counts |
| Half-day | Short sessions, reviews, consulting calls with prep | Price it above half your day rate (see below) |
| Hour | Small, unpredictable tasks, retainers with a support component | Clients watch the clock; fast work earns you less |
| Project | Defined deliverables, when you can estimate the days | Needs a tight scope and a change-order process |
Even if you never quote a day rate to a client, you need to know it. A project price is just your day rate times your estimated days, plus contingency. The project quoting guide walks through that step by step.
A half-day booking rarely leaves you with a usable second half. There's context switching, travel or call prep, and it's hard to sell the other half to someone else. A common approach is to set the half-day rate at around 60% of the day rate. The calculator above uses 60%. Change it in your own pricing if your work splits cleanly.
The calculator tells you what you need to charge, not what clients in your niche will pay. Check the result against public evidence: rates published by freelancers in your field, rate surveys from your industry association, or day rates in contract job ads for similar work. This page doesn't quote market rates, because they vary too much by country, skill and niche to be useful here.
State it plainly, with what's included, and don't apologise for it.
Round to a clean number (440, not 436.04). Odd numbers make the rate look negotiable. When you put your rate up later, use the rate increase email templates.
Once you know your day rate, the next step is quoting projects with it. The Freelance Pricing & Quote Kit ($12) includes a pricing calculator, a three-tier quote builder and a scope & change order pack, so every project price comes from your real numbers rather than a guess.