Freelance Overhead Calculator
Estimate your monthly freelance overhead, overhead per billable hour, and the revenue needed to cover your business costs.
Overview
The Freelance Overhead Calculator helps you estimate the monthly cost of running your freelance business. Enter your recurring expenses such as software, workspace, insurance, admin, marketing, and other overhead, along with your expected billable hours and profit target, to see your cost base and a useful revenue benchmark.
How it works
The calculator adds your recurring monthly business expenses to estimate total overhead. It then divides that figure by your billable hours to show the overhead cost per billable hour. If you enter a target monthly profit, the calculator adds that to your overhead to estimate the monthly revenue you would want to generate, and then divides that total by billable hours to show the hourly rate needed to support that target.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter your monthly software and subscription costs.
- 2Add your workspace, internet, phone, insurance, admin, and marketing expenses.
- 3Include any other recurring business overhead.
- 4Enter the number of billable hours you expect to invoice each month.
- 5Add your target monthly profit to see the revenue and hourly rate needed.
Example Calculation
Monthly software costs
$180
Monthly workspace costs
$350
Monthly insurance and admin costs
$90
Monthly marketing costs
$150
Other monthly overhead
$80
Billable hours per month
75
Target monthly profit
$2,500
Total monthly overhead
$850
With these inputs, total monthly overhead is about 850. That means overhead is roughly 11.33 per billable hour, and the freelancer would need around 3350 in monthly revenue, or about 44.67 per billable hour, to reach the target.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as freelance overhead?
Freelance overhead usually includes recurring business costs such as software subscriptions, workspace costs, insurance, bookkeeping, internet, marketing, banking fees, and other admin expenses.
Does this calculator include taxes?
No, taxes are not added automatically. If you want them reflected, include them in your cost estimates or use the result as a pre-tax business target.
Why are billable hours important?
Billable hours determine how many hours are available to recover your costs. Fewer billable hours usually mean you need a higher hourly rate to cover the same overhead.
Should I include one-off expenses?
This calculator is designed for recurring monthly overhead. For occasional costs, you can estimate a monthly average and include it in other monthly overhead.
Can I use this calculator to set my freelance rate?
It can help you estimate a minimum revenue or hourly target based on your costs and goals, but pricing may also depend on demand, experience, project scope, and value delivered.
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Assumptions and warnings
Assumptions
- This calculator uses recurring monthly overhead costs only.
- Billable hours are treated as the hours you expect to invoice clients in an average month.
- Target profit is added on top of overhead as a simple revenue goal.
- Results are estimates and do not include taxes unless you include them in your costs.
Warnings
- This calculator provides an estimate only and is not financial or tax advice.
- Your actual overhead and required rate may vary with workload, seasonality, unpaid time, and one-off expenses.