← Freelance retainer calculator

Your floor rate assumes the whole month sells. It usually doesn’t.

Every “what should I charge” calculator divides your income goal by your billable hours. That answer is only true at a fill rate almost nobody hits — and the number it hides is bigger than the one it shows.

The arithmetic that goes missing

Take the calculator’s default plan: $6,000 take-home, $1,800 of costs and taxes, 160 available hours, 65% realistic utilization, a 20-hour retainer, 15% scope buffer.

That gives 104 billable hours against a $7,800 monthly revenue target, so the hourly floor is $75 and the retainer prices at $1,725. Send it and the tool is right: the client clears your floor, with buffer to spare.

But $1,725 is 22% of $7,800. The other $6,075 has to come out of the 84 hours you have not sold to anyone. Nothing in the floor rate says so — the division that produced it already assumed those hours were sold.

What that assumption costs at real fill rates

The same $1,725 retainer, the same $75 floor, against a $7,800 target. Only the share of the 84 unsold hours you actually bill changes. Arithmetic only.
You bill this share of unsold hours Hours billed Month reaches Short of goal Hours that would close it
100%84.0 h$8,025None — $225 over—
80%67.2 h$6,765$1,03513.8 h
60%50.4 h$5,505$2,29530.6 h
40%33.6 h$4,245$3,55547.4 h

The break-even is the useful number: this plan needs a 96.4% fill rate on its unsold hours before the goal arrives. Not 96% utilization — utilization is already priced in, at 65%. Ninety-six percent of the hours left after that haircut, sold and billed, every month.

That is the bet a $1,725 quote is making. It may be a fine bet. It should not be an invisible one.

Two ways to close the gap, and how to tell which is smaller

At a 60% fill rate the plan is $2,295 short. That is either:

Usually the answer is neither on its own: a second retainer at half the gap and a modest price rise. Entering the other client’s revenue and hours into the calculator shows what is left to find after both.

And when the required fill rate comes back above 100%, that is a different answer, not a harder version of the same one. It means billing every hour you have still misses the goal. Selling cannot fix it; the price, the capacity, or the take-home number has to move.

Why the tool doesn’t just lower your floor

It would be easy to divide by expected-fill hours instead and print a bigger floor rate. That produces a rate you cannot quote — one that prices your scarcity into every hour and loses the work. The gap is real, but the fix is usually a different client mix rather than a number the market will not pay. So the calculator keeps the floor honest and reports the gap separately, where you can act on it.

Open the calculator, fill in your income goal, then add what you already have committed and the share of remaining hours you honestly expect to bill. Once the month adds up, check the price against real usage, check what rollover costs you, and check how much cash Net 30 makes you float. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

This page is arithmetic, not financial, tax, or legal advice. It does not tell you what to charge or which clients to take. Hosted URLs, when they exist, carry no availability SLA.

Common questions

Why does my freelance rate calculator say I am fine when I am not making my income goal?

Most rate calculators divide your monthly revenue target by your billable capacity. That gives the rate that works only if every billable hour in the month gets sold. A single retainer can clear that rate exactly and still be a small fraction of the month. On a $7,800 target with 104 billable hours, a 20-hour retainer at $1,725 is 22% of the target; the other 78% depends on filling 84 hours you have not sold yet.

What fill rate does my retainer price assume?

Divide the revenue you still need after the retainer by your unsold hours times your floor rate. On the default plan that is $6,075 ÷ (84 hours × $75) = 96%. If you do not bill 96% of your non-retainer capacity, the price does not reach the goal, however well it clears the floor.

Should I raise my retainer price or find more clients?

Both close the same gap and the arithmetic tells you which is smaller. At a realistic 60% fill rate the default plan is $2,295 short, which is either 30.6 more billed hours or a retainer priced at $4,020 instead of $1,725. If the required fill rate is above 100%, selling cannot close it at all and the price, the capacity, or the goal has to change.