Work out your hourly rate as a freelancer.
Your costs, your social charges, your truly billable time and the income you aim for: the ChroKo calculation, in 2 minutes.
Every figure, explained.
This is exactly the ChroKo calculation: you can show it to a client without having to justify yourself.
Revision simulator: does your fixed price hold up?
A well-priced fixed fee can end up below your minimum rate because of back-and-forths. Test one of your recent projects.
And in your apps?
ChroKo does this calculation for every job, based on the time really spent in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere and After Effects, and warns you when a fixed price goes off track.
How is your hourly rate calculated?
The principle is simple: your revenue must pay for your income, your costs and your social charges. It is then divided by the hours you can really bill — not the hours spent at your desk.
- Billable hours: working days in the year (weeks minus days off and public holidays) × hours per day, minus non-billable time (quotes, admin, prospecting).
- Required revenue: (target income + costs) ÷ (1 − deduction rate). With 25% of social charges, you need €1.33 of revenue to keep €1.
- Target rate = required revenue ÷ billable hours; recommended rate = target rate + your safety margin.
The most common trap: overestimating your billable hours. A year of 1,600 hours at the desk often gives fewer than 1,000 hours actually sold.
The calculations are a decision aid, not tax or accounting advice: the social charge and tax rates are the ones you enter.