Where the number comes from
The estimate is built from five inputs: the kind of work, how experienced you are, how complex the project is, where you are based, and where the client is based. A base rate for the service is adjusted by each of those in turn, then your safety buffer is added on top.
Be clear about what that is and is not. It is a model, not measured market data. It is useful as a sanity check when you have no idea where to start, or when a client's offer feels low and you want a second opinion. It is not a benchmark you can quote as a source.
Starting from a salary instead
Most people arrive at freelancing from a job, so the honest question is usually not "what is the market rate" but "what do I need to charge to be no worse off than I was". Dividing an old salary by 2,080 hours gives a number that will quietly bankrupt you, because it assumes every working hour is billable and that nobody else is covering your costs.
The arithmetic that holds up has three steps:
- Count the weeks you will actually bill. Fifty-two minus holiday, public holidays and the weeks you will be ill or between projects leaves roughly forty-five.
- Count the hours in those weeks you will actually bill. Finding work, writing proposals, invoicing, chasing payment and keeping your skills current are not billable. Sixty to seventy percent of a full week is a realistic ceiling, so somewhere near 1,200 billable hours a year.
- Add what your employer used to pay for. Paid leave, pension contributions, equipment, software, insurance and the employer side of taxes and social contributions. What that adds up to depends entirely on your country, but it is rarely small.
A worked example
Say a salary of 60,000 a year felt right. Add what an employer was covering on top of it, and the figure you need to earn as a freelancer is meaningfully higher, not the same. Divide that by around 1,200 billable hours rather than 2,080, and the hourly rate that keeps you level is roughly double the one you get from the naive calculation.
The numbers here are an illustration, not advice. Your billable share, your costs and your tax position are specific to you and to where you live, and they are worth checking with someone who knows your country's rules.
Why the client's country changes the answer
The same work is worth different amounts to different buyers. A studio in a high cost market has a budget shaped by what it would pay locally, and that is usually well above what the same role costs where a lot of freelancers live. That gap is the single biggest lever most cross-border freelancers have, and it is why the calculator asks where both of you are.
It cuts the other way too. Quoting a rate anchored to an expensive market at a client in a cheaper one is the fastest way to end a conversation. The point is not to charge the maximum, it is to charge what is reasonable in the buyer's world rather than in yours.
Turning an hourly rate into a price
Clients rarely want to buy hours. Once you have a number, it usually reaches them in one of three shapes.
- Hourly, for open-ended or advisory work where the scope genuinely cannot be pinned down. Easiest to agree, hardest to grow.
- Day rate, for work booked in blocks. Roughly six to seven billable hours a day, not eight, because a booked day still contains meetings and context switching.
- Fixed project price, for work with a definable end. Estimate the hours, price them at your rate, then add for the revisions you know are coming. A fixed price rewards you for getting faster; an hourly rate quietly punishes it.
Raising it later
The rate you set at the start is almost never the right one a year in, and waiting to feel ready is how people stay underpriced for years. Two moments make the conversation easy: when a project is finishing well, and when you are close to full. A raise is much easier to ask for from someone who has just seen good work land.
Raise new clients first. Existing ones can move at a natural boundary, a new phase or a contract renewal, with notice rather than as a surprise on an invoice.
After you have a number
A rate only becomes money once it is agreed and billed. The service agreement generator puts the rate, the scope and the payment terms in writing, and the invoice generator takes it the rest of the way.
If the client is in another country, that is where Ruul comes in. Ruul is the legal counterparty on the invoice, so you can bill clients without registering a company in 190 countries, and get paid in 140+ currencies, usually within one business day of the client's payment clearing.
