Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Find your true net hourly rate after platform fees, unpaid admin time, and ad spend — across every income stream.
Income Stream 1
How to calculate your true freelance hourly rate
Most freelancers calculate their hourly rate incorrectly. If you charge $80/hr on Upwork, your actual take-home after Upwork's 20% fee is $64/hr — and that's before accounting for the time you spent writing proposals, answering pre-sale questions, or handling revisions.
The true formula is: True Hourly Rate = (Revenue × (1 − fee%)) ÷ (billable hours + admin hours). Once you add 8–12 hours of admin work per week, that $64/hr often drops to $40–$50/hr.
Platform fee comparison (2025)
- Upwork — 20% platform fee
- Fiverr — 20% platform fee
- Freelancer.com — 10% platform fee
- Etsy — 6.5% platform fee
- Gumroad — 10% platform fee
- Stripe (direct) — 2.9% platform fee
- PayPal — 3.49% platform fee
Use this calculator to compare your streams side by side. Add your admin hours honestly — proposals, client emails, revision cycles — to get a realistic picture.
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