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Hourly, Day Rate & Retainer Pricing
Client-Ready Hourly Rate
Baseline Rate: $97.43 · Healthy utilization
Day Rate
$643
6.0 hrs / day
Monthly Retainer
$4,287
40 hrs / mo
Billable Hours / Year
1,104
60.0% Effective Billable Share
Projected Surplus
+$14,325
After target income, expenses and taxes
Annual Revenue Allocation
Rate Stack
Rate Summary
Drop in a paystub, bank statement or screenshot — the AI reads it and fills these fields for you.
Invoices Tracker is where this stops being a one-off number: keep your real balances there and the projection updates itself.
Describe an invoice and the AI writes it. PDF without watermarks, free.
A sustainable freelance rate needs to fund owner pay, business expenses, taxes, unpaid operating time, and risk. Cross-check tax assumptions with the IRS self-employed tax center and cost assumptions with SBA startup cost planning.
Track sales, admin, revisions, and learning time. Your rate should be based on billable capacity, not total hours at the desk.
Add room for taxes, slow months, equipment replacement, insurance, retirement, and unpaid leave before quoting.
Use market references such as the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook after you know your floor, then quote based on value and positioning.
If the rate feels high, the issue is often utilization or scope risk, not the formula.
How-to guides that use this tool