Minimum
$95/hr
Covers owner draw and core expenses. Floor, not quote.
Calculator
Consulting Rate Calculator
Set a consulting or contractor rate from real business math, not salary nostalgia and panic.
Use your income goal, expenses, working weeks, billable hours, savings buffer, and business assumptions to estimate the hourly rate your consulting or contractor work needs to support.
Result
Healthy rate: $134/hr
This is the hourly floor that covers owner draw, expenses, tax reserve, savings, and a slow-month buffer before pricing strategy gets fancy.
Premium quote rate suggestion: $145/hr
Rate tiers
Sustainable
$116/hr
Adds tax reserve. Better, but still not much slack.
Healthy
$134/hr
Adds tax, savings, and slow-month buffer. Default target.
Premium
$145/hr
Healthy plus quote buffer, rounded for proposals.
Revenue targets
- Annual gross revenue required
- $160,840
- Monthly revenue target
- $13,403
- Weekly revenue target
- $3,351
- Annual billable hours
- 1,200
- Monthly billable hours
- 100
Verdict: Healthy
This is workable. Quote from healthy or premium, and keep minimum in the basement where it belongs.
Next actions
Set project minimums (now): Turn your healthy rate into a project minimum next. Hourly is math. Quotes are strategy.
Open Project Quote Calculator →Price a retainer (later): Use your hourly floor to build a monthly retainer with scoped hours, meetings, and risk buffer.
Open Retainer Pricing Calculator →Read the pricing guide (later): Understand how hourly, fixed-price, and retainer models compare before choosing your approach.
How to price freelance work →
Assumptions used
- Desired annual owner draw: $100,000
- Monthly business expenses: $1,200
- Annual business expenses: $14,400
- Working weeks per year: 48
- Billable hours per week: 25
- Annual billable hours: 1,200
- Monthly billable hours: 100
- Tax reserve: 25%
- Savings reserve: 10%
- Profit / slow-month buffer: 10%
- Premium uplift: 10%
- Capacity mode: Direct billable hours
- Rounding policy: Quote rates round to nearest 5 below 150, nearest 10 at 150+
- Tax reserve note: Planning reserve input, not tax advice
Breakdown details
| Annual expenses | $14,400 |
|---|---|
| Monthly billable hours | 100 |
| Annual billable hours | 1,200 |
Educational estimate only. Not tax, legal, accounting, or investment advice.
Related calculators
Quick answer
This consulting rate calculator uses the same baseline math as a freelance or contractor hourly rate calculator: owner pay target + business costs + reserves, divided by realistic billable hours. It helps answer how much to charge for consulting without pretending salary ÷ 2,080 is enough.
Salary-to-consulting conversion (without fantasy math)
Salary math usually ignores employer overhead, unpaid admin/sales time, bench time between projects, taxes, and reserves. If you skip those, your contractor rate calculator output becomes a subsidy plan for your clients.
Consulting vs contracting vs freelance (and when to quote by project)
- Consulting usually carries decision risk and stakeholder complexity, so use the healthy or premium tier as default.
- Contracting and implementation work still needs explicit scope. Use Project Quote when outcomes are fixed-fee, not open-ended time.
- Freelance packaging often blends deliverables and advisory access, so convert this baseline into retainer math with boundaries and overage terms.
- Fixed-scope consulting: include PM/admin/revision drag before sending the quote.