Online Tool Store
Freelance Quote Calculator
Build a project quote from estimated hours, your target rate, non-billable time, and a contingency that reflects how estimates actually go.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
Finance
Freelance Quote Calculator
Frontend preview — no upload or external service.
Quote
60 hours plus 20% contingency is 72 hours. At a rate covering 4.8M over 44 weeks at 22 billable hours a week, that is 4,959 an hour — a quote of about 357,000.
How the Freelance Quote Calculator works
- Estimate the hours honestly, then add contingency rather than padding the estimate itself.
- Derive your rate from target income and genuinely billable hours, not from what feels reasonable.
- Quote a number that survives the project going 20% over, because most do.
The method
A sustainable rate divides target income by actually billable hours, which is far fewer than working hours once admin, sales and unpaid revision are removed.
rate = (target income + costs) ÷ (billable weeks × billable hours per week)
At 44 weeks and 22 genuinely billable hours a week, that is 968 hours a year — not the 1,760 a full-time schedule suggests.
FAQ
How many hours a week are actually billable?
For most independents, around half of working hours. Sales, admin, invoicing, learning and unpaid revisions all consume time nobody pays for directly, and a rate built on 40 billable hours a week under-prices badly.
Should I show the contingency in the quote?
Usually not as a separate line, since it invites a negotiation to remove it. Build it into the number and be prepared to explain the estimate if asked.
Fixed price or hourly?
Fixed price transfers the estimation risk to you and rewards efficiency. Hourly transfers it to the client and penalises speed. Fixed price with a clearly bounded scope is the usual compromise.
How we compare
| Feature | Online Tool Store | A spreadsheet | An advisor consultation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate from billable hours | ✓ | Guesswork | Varies |
| Contingency built in | ✓ | ✗ | Sometimes |
| No account | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Figures stay local | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Freelance Quote Calculator derives the rate from genuinely billable hours, which is why quotes built on a full-time hour count consistently lose money.