Work backward from the take-home you want to the hourly rate to bill.
Open the What Should I Charge? tool →A salaried worker's hourly wage is a terrible guide for what to charge on your own, because as a freelancer you also pay self-employment tax, cover your own business expenses, and can only bill a fraction of the hours you work. So we go the other way: start from the take-home you want for the year, gross it up by your tax set-aside to find the pre-tax profit you need, add your business expenses to get the revenue you must bill, and divide by your billable hours.
The key honesty is in 'billable hours.' If you work 40 hours but only 25 are billable client work, your rate has to cover the other 15 (admin, marketing, invoicing, downtime) too. Enter the hours you can actually invoice, not the hours you sit at your desk.
The tax set-aside is a labeled assumption you can tune; for a precise figure use the Quarterly Taxes & Set-Aside tool, which computes your real self-employment plus income tax.
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