Whether you are a freelancer negotiating a new contract, a consultant determining your billing structure, or a salaried employee curious about the value of your time, calculating your daily rate is a fundamental financial exercise. The Daily Rate Calculator simplifies this process by converting your target income into actionable daily and hourly metrics.
Why Calculate a Daily Rate?
Knowing your daily rate helps in several scenarios:
Contract Negotiations: Many IT and creative contracts are billed by the day (per diem) rather than by the hour.
Comparing Offers: It allows you to make an apples-to-apples comparison between a salaried job with benefits and a freelance contract without them.
Project Estimation: If you know a project will take 10 days, simply multiplying by your daily rate gives you a quick quote baseline.
The Formula Behind the Calculation
To calculate your daily rate accurately, you cannot simply divide your annual salary by 365. You must account for working days. The standard calculation logic used in this tool is:
Determine Total Working Days: Multiply your working days per week (typically 5) by the number of weeks you work per year (typically 48 to 52, depending on vacation time).
Annualize Income: If you input a monthly salary, it is multiplied by 12. If weekly, by the number of working weeks.
Calculate Base Daily Rate: Divide the Total Annual Income by the Total Working Days.
Formula: Daily Rate = Annual Target Income / (Days per Week × Weeks per Year)
Freelancers vs. Salaried Employees
If you are a freelancer, your daily rate needs to be higher than an equivalent salaried employee's rate. This is because you must cover your own:
Taxes (Self-employment tax)
Health Insurance and Benefits
Unpaid Vacation and Sick Days
Business Overhead (Software, Hardware, Office space)
A common rule of thumb is to add 25% to 50% to your "equivalent salary" rate to ensure you maintain the same standard of living. Use the "Overhead / Tax Buffer" field in the calculator to account for these hidden costs.
Example Calculation
Let's say you want to earn a gross income of 100,000 per year.
Standard Year: 5 days/week × 52 weeks = 260 working days.
Daily Rate: 100,000 / 260 = 384.62 per day.
With 4 Weeks Vacation: 5 days/week × 48 weeks = 240 working days.
Adjusted Daily Rate: 100,000 / 240 = 416.67 per day.
As you can see, taking vacation time into account significantly changes the rate you need to charge to hit your financial targets.
function calculateDailyRate() {
// Get Inputs
var incomeAmount = parseFloat(document.getElementById("incomeAmount").value);
var period = document.getElementById("period").value;
var hoursPerDay = parseFloat(document.getElementById("hoursPerDay").value);
var daysPerWeek = parseFloat(document.getElementById("daysPerWeek").value);
var weeksPerYear = parseFloat(document.getElementById("weeksPerYear").value);
var overheadPercentage = parseFloat(document.getElementById("overheadPercentage").value);
var errorDiv = document.getElementById("errorMessage");
var resultsDiv = document.getElementById("resultsSection");
// Validate Inputs
if (isNaN(incomeAmount) || incomeAmount <= 0) {
errorDiv.style.display = "block";
errorDiv.innerHTML = "Please enter a valid income amount.";
resultsDiv.style.display = "none";
return;
}
if (isNaN(hoursPerDay) || hoursPerDay 24) {
errorDiv.style.display = "block";
errorDiv.innerHTML = "Please enter valid working hours (1-24).";
resultsDiv.style.display = "none";
return;
}
if (isNaN(daysPerWeek) || daysPerWeek 7) {
errorDiv.style.display = "block";
errorDiv.innerHTML = "Please enter valid working days per week (1-7).";
resultsDiv.style.display = "none";
return;
}
if (isNaN(weeksPerYear) || weeksPerYear 52) {
errorDiv.style.display = "block";
errorDiv.innerHTML = "Please enter valid weeks per year (1-52).";
resultsDiv.style.display = "none";
return;
}
// Reset Error
errorDiv.style.display = "none";
// Handle Overhead (default to 0 if NaN)
if (isNaN(overheadPercentage)) {
overheadPercentage = 0;
}
// Logic: Convert everything to Annual first
var annualBase = 0;
if (period === "annual") {
annualBase = incomeAmount;
} else if (period === "monthly") {
annualBase = incomeAmount * 12;
} else if (period === "weekly") {
annualBase = incomeAmount * weeksPerYear; // Assuming user earns this for the weeks worked
}
// Apply Overhead Increase
// If user wants $100k net, and adds 20% overhead, target becomes $120k
var totalTarget = annualBase * (1 + (overheadPercentage / 100));
// Calculate Working Time Units
var totalWorkingDays = daysPerWeek * weeksPerYear;
var totalWorkingHours = totalWorkingDays * hoursPerDay;
// Calculate Rates
var dailyRate = totalTarget / totalWorkingDays;
var hourlyRate = dailyRate / hoursPerDay;
var weeklyRate = dailyRate * daysPerWeek;
var monthlyRate = totalTarget / 12; // Standardized monthly average
// Format Currency
var formatter = new Intl.NumberFormat('en-US', {
style: 'currency',
currency: 'USD',
minimumFractionDigits: 2
});
// Display Results
document.getElementById("resDaily").innerHTML = formatter.format(dailyRate);
document.getElementById("resHourly").innerHTML = formatter.format(hourlyRate);
document.getElementById("resWeekly").innerHTML = formatter.format(weeklyRate);
document.getElementById("resMonthly").innerHTML = formatter.format(monthlyRate);
document.getElementById("resAnnual").innerHTML = formatter.format(totalTarget);
document.getElementById("displayDays").innerHTML = totalWorkingDays;
resultsDiv.style.display = "block";
}