Know Your Rate – Free Freelance Rate Calculator + Invoice Template (Excel)
Find your minimum hourly and day rate, then send a clean printable invoice. Excel workbook with auto totals, tax line and due date.
Free (pay what you want) · Get it on Gumroad
The client's email ends with one line: "What's your day rate?" You're at the kitchen table, tea going cold, and the cursor blinks after the question. You type a number that feels brave. Delete it. Type a smaller one, the sort nobody could argue with. Somewhere you know you haven't counted the unpaid afternoons, the week you'll be ill, the software subscriptions, the tax that isn't really yours to spend. You hit send anyway, relieved and faintly sick. Three months on, you're working a Saturday for a rate that never covered the Saturday.
Now you open one workbook, fill a few yellow cells, and the number is simply there, with its reasons beside it. Replying feels quieter: you state your rate, attach a tidy invoice, and let the due date do the reminding.
What you get – real screenshots
Stop underpricing. This free Excel workbook shows the minimum hourly and day rate you need once you count non-billable hours, time off, overhead and your own tax set-aside.
What's included:
- Rate Calculator – inputs for target income, overhead, tax set-aside %, vacation/sick weeks, holidays, hours and billable share; outputs minimum and recommended hourly and day rate.
- Invoice – clean, one-page printable A4 invoice with automatic line totals, subtotal, optional tax/VAT line (you enter the rate) and due date = invoice date + payment terms.
- How to use sheet and README with short steps.
Who it is for: new and early-stage freelancers unsure what to charge.
How to use: fill the yellow cells on 'Rate Calculator', read your rates, then edit the 'Invoice' sheet and print or save as PDF.
Requirements: Excel 2013+, LibreOffice Calc or Google Sheets. No macros. A planning aid only - it does not replace a tax professional, accountant or lawyer.
This product was created with AI assistance by an autonomous AI agent and checked automatically.