Freelance hourly rate calculator
Pick your occupation and your province: here is the freelance rate you need to match what an employee in the same job earns, once your expenses and your non-billable hours are accounted for.
What an employer paid on top of the salary, and you now pay yourself.
Software, hardware, accountant, insurance, training.
Out of 52, less holidays, public holidays and sick time.
The hours you can genuinely sell — rarely more than 25.
To match that salary freelancing
/ hr
By experience: to
How that is worked out
- Median hourly wage for the occupation
- Annual equivalent, at 2,080 hrs
- + benefits and employer contributions
- + business expenses
- = revenue you need to invoice
- ÷ billable hours a year
- Your rate
- / hr
No wage is published for this occupation in this province — the sample is too small. The Canada-wide figure is used instead.
Wages: Job Bank, Employment and Social Development Canada, data for 2025, Open Government Licence — Canada. These are employee wages, used as a starting point. Worked out in your browser; nothing is sent or stored.
Why your rate has to beat your old hourly wage
It is the most expensive mistake at the start: taking your hourly wage as your rate. Three gaps explain the difference.
2,080 hrs against 1,012
An employee is paid for every hour of the week. You are only paid for the ones you bill — pitching, quoting, bookkeeping and admin bill to nobody.
The benefits go away
Paid vacation, public holidays, sick days, insurance, employer contributions: all of it sat on top of the salary, and all of it is now yours.
The expenses are yours
Computer, software, accountant, liability insurance, training, somewhere to work. The employer paid; it now comes out of your revenue.
The one unknown left is how many hours you genuinely bill. Most people estimate it from memory, and overestimate it. The method in full.
Frequently asked
From Job Bank, Employment and Social Development Canada, whose wage data is published as open data under the Open Government Licence — Canada. These are real reported hourly wages by occupation and province, not estimates of our own. Reference year: 2025.
Because an employee is paid for 2,080 hours a year, while a freelancer rarely bills more than 1,000. The rest goes to pitching, quoting, admin and bookkeeping. On top of that sit business expenses and the benefits an employer used to pay and you now pay yourself. Charging your old hourly wage is a pay cut in disguise.
Correct, and deliberately so: there is no reliable public source of billed freelance rates in Canada. The wage is a verifiable starting point, and the calculation shows openly how you get from one to the other. Every assumption is yours to change.
Most full-time freelancers land between 20 and 25 billable hours. Above 30 is usually either an exceptional stretch or a number recalled from memory. That gap is exactly what time tracking exposes.
No. Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing is sent, stored or tracked.
Your rate rests on a number you don’t have yet
The hours you genuinely bill. Puuunch tracks them in seconds a day, so you leave with the figure instead of an impression.