Freelancer & Agency Studio
The all-in-one hub for freelancers and small agencies — set the hourly rate you need to charge, then check how many billable hours or units a fixed-price project needs to break even, without switching between separate tools.
Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator
Calculate the hourly rate you need to charge to hit your income goal — accounting for expenses, self-employment tax, realistic billable hours, and, if you work through Upwork or Fiverr, the platform fee and currency-conversion markup that quietly reduce what actually lands in your account.
Break-even Units Calculator
Find the exact sales volume where fixed and variable costs are fully covered — zero profit, zero loss. Use it as a planning tool before you launch or commit to a cost, not just a diagnostic after the fact.
The hidden costs platform dashboards don't show
Freelancers pricing work on Upwork or Fiverr are dealing with more than a single headline fee. Upwork replaced its old tiered structure with a variable 0-15% per-contract fee set at proposal time (effective May 2025), and most freelancers report an effective rate around 10% — but that's before Connects ($0.15 each just to bid), withdrawal fees (from $0 for US ACH up to $50 for wire), and currency conversion, which “can add 2-4% — sometimes more than the platform fee itself... the cost no platform dashboard shows you.” Fiverr is simpler on paper — a flat 20% commission with no tiers or loyalty discounts — but a 14-day clearing period plus FX markup on withdrawal (2-4% via PayPal, roughly 2% via Payoneer) pushes the real effective take-rate toward 24-28%. None of that shows up if you're pricing purely off your desired take-home pay.
What this hub covers
The Freelance Hourly Rate calculator above grosses up your desired take-home income to cover self-employment tax and business expenses, then divides by a realistic number of billable hours — not your total working hours — to show the minimum rate you actually need to charge. The Break-even Units calculator answers the companion question for project-based or productized work: how many units, hours, or deliverables you need to sell before fixed costs are covered and you start actually making money.
Who this is for
For freelancers and small agency owners setting a rate for the first time, checking whether a current rate still supports their income goal, or figuring out the minimum volume a fixed-price engagement needs to be worth taking on.