Calculate my freelance rate from my income goal
Works back from your target income, real billable hours, and costs to a day rate, project price, and minimum.
The prompt
Help me work out what to charge as a freelancer, starting from what I need to earn.
Target take-home income per year: [AMOUNT]
Business costs per year: [software, equipment, insurance, accountant, coworking, training]
Benefits I now pay myself: [health insurance, retirement, paid time off]
Weeks I plan to work per year: [e.g. 46]
Hours per week I can work: [TOTAL]
Location for tax purposes: [COUNTRY / STATE]
Typical project: [WHAT I DELIVER, and roughly how long it takes]
Previous step (optional): [PASTE my niche and positioning, so pricing matches the clients I'm targeting]
Do this:
1. Estimate billable hours realistically: subtract time for sales, admin, and gaps between projects (assume 50-70% of working time is billable unless I say otherwise), and explain the assumption.
2. Calculate the revenue needed: take-home + costs + benefits + an estimated tax set-aside (mark the tax rate [CONFIRM]).
3. Turn that into an hourly floor, a day rate, and a price for my typical project.
4. Show 3 pricing options for that project (hourly, fixed fee, monthly retainer) with pros and cons for my niche.
5. Set a walk-away minimum and explain how to raise rates for new clients over time.
Show the math step by step in a table. This is general information; confirm tax and insurance figures with an accountant or local professional.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Finance & Accounting prompts
What to fill in
- AMOUNT
- health insurance, retirement, paid time off
- e.g. 46
- TOTAL
- COUNTRY / STATE
- WHAT I DELIVER, and roughly how long it takes
- CONFIRM
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Chain-of-Thought structure (Chain-of-thought prompting). A chain-of-thought prompt asks the model to work through a problem step by step before giving its answer, which tends to help on reasoning, planning and multi-part questions.
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