Turn your monthly income goal and fixed costs into the hourly rate you actually need to charge.
The mistake that sinks most freelance careers is dividing the desired salary by the number of hours in a month. A month has roughly 168 working hours, but nobody sells 168 hours: proposals, invoices, prospecting, admin, study and the dead time between projects eat a large slice of every week. This calculator starts from the two numbers that actually matter — what you want to take home and what you must pay to keep working — and divides them by the hours you genuinely bill, not by the hours you are merely available.
The occupancy rate is the honest part of the equation. A freelancer with six billable hours a day across twenty working days has 120 hours of capacity; at 70% occupancy only 84 of them turn into invoices, and everything you need to earn has to fit inside those 84 hours. Fixed costs are entered as an amount you inform — software subscriptions, coworking, accountant, internet and the taxes you actually pay — because tax regimes differ from one freelancer to the next and this tool deliberately assumes no bracket, table or rate on your behalf.
The breakdown under the result splits your rate in two: the part that only repays fixed costs and the part that becomes real income. Comparing that rate to a CLT salary deserves care, because an employee also receives paid vacation plus a third, a 13th salary, FGTS deposits, notice protection and employer-funded charges that a freelancer has to cover from the same hourly rate — so an equivalent freelance rate is always meaningfully higher than a CLT salary divided by 220 hours. This calculator does not estimate any of those charges; it shows what your own numbers demand. Everything runs in your browser, and no figure you type is transmitted or stored anywhere.
Hourly rate = (monthly income goal + fixed monthly costs) ÷ (billable hours per day × working days per month × occupancy ÷ 100). Example: (8,000 + 2,000) ÷ (6 × 20 × 0.70) = 10,000 ÷ 84 = 119.05 per hour.
Charge enough to cover your fixed costs plus your income target within the hours you actually bill. With a goal of R$ 8,000, R$ 2,000 of monthly costs and 84 billable hours, the rate is R$ 119.05 per hour.
Most established freelancers bill between 50% and 75% of their available hours. Start around 60–70% and adjust it once you have tracked a few months of real work — a rate built on 100% occupancy breaks the first time a project slips.
Yes, as the amount you actually pay each month. The calculator never assumes a tax regime or bracket for you, so whatever you inform — MEI fee, Simples Nacional, carnê-leão or an accountant's estimate — is what gets covered by the rate.
A freelance rate has to be higher than a CLT salary divided by 220 hours. Vacation with the extra third, the 13th salary, FGTS and the employer charges are all paid by the company for an employee, while a freelancer funds them out of the same hourly rate — this tool does not calculate those charges, it only shows the rate your own goal and costs require.
No. The whole calculation runs in JavaScript on your device, and nothing you type — income goal, costs or hours — is sent to a server, logged or stored.
Vai.la turns any URL into a short link with click statistics, QR Code and your own biolink.
Vai.la is not responsible for how the tools are used or for decisions made based on their results.