What should your day rate actually be?
The naive math says $100,000 divided by 250 working days is a $400 day rate. But you will not bill 250 days, and you do not keep what you bill. Goal Seek starts from the income you want to keep and solves for the rate that gets you there.
Work Starter Goal Seek free
After you install, this is the model to open.
What Day Rate Does a Freelancer Need to Charge?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
The answer
Goal Seek raises the day rate until net take-home hits the $100,000 target.
- Required day rate
- $1,202 per day
- Naive estimate
- $400 per day ($100k over 250 days)
- Days actually billed
- 128.8 of 184 available
- Hourly equivalent
- $150 per hour, 8-hour day
To take home $100,000 after overhead and tax, this freelancer must charge about $1,202 per day, three times the naive $400 estimate. The gap comes from time and tax: only 128.8 days of a 4-day, 46-week year actually get billed at 70% utilization, and 30% of the remaining profit goes to tax. A $600 rate that feels expensive nets just $45,696.
The model
A one-column model of a realistic freelance year: capacity, utilization, overhead and tax between your rate and your take-home.
| Target take-home income | $100,000 /yr |
| Billable days per week | 4 (one day for admin and sales) |
| Weeks worked per year | 46 |
| Utilization rate | 70% of available days actually sold |
| Overhead costs | $12,000 /yr |
| Effective tax rate | 30% |
| Day rate | Goal Seek solves for this |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Who should work on which project?Best-Fit Assignments
- What should you bid to win the job and still make money?Competitive Bid Optimizer
- What will this project actually cost at completion?Project Health Check (EVM)
- Fund the safe project or the risky one?
- Which offer package should you actually ask for?Job Offer Package Optimizer
- Big advance or double the royalty rate?Advance vs Royalty
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: What-if analysis in Google Sheets.