Derive a freelance day/hourly rate backwards from target income, honest billable utilization, overhead, and the self-employment tax premium — the arithmetic that proves a rate is not salary÷2000. Use when asked what should I charge as a freelancer, how do I set my consulting rate, why is my freelance rate so high, or convert my salary to a contract rate. Produces the required-revenue breakdown, billable-hours math, the hourly and day rate, and the multiplier vs the naive salary÷2000 number.
Start a fresh conversation. Replace the highlighted placeholders.
Use freelance-rate to calculate a defensible hourly and day rate from [target pre-tax income, annual overhead, weeks off, and billable percentage] and [self-employment tax premium], including required revenue, billable-hours math, and a client-safe justification.
Required inputs
[target pre-tax income, annual overhead, weeks off, and billable percentage]
[self-employment tax premium]
User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗
SKILL.md
name: freelance-ratedescription: "Derive a freelance day/hourly rate backwards from target income, honest billable utilization, overhead, and the self-employment tax premium — the arithmetic that proves a rate is not salary÷2000. Use when asked what should I charge as a freelancer, how do I set my consulting rate, why is my freelance rate so high, or convert my salary to a contract rate. Produces the required-revenue breakdown, billable-hours math, the hourly and day rate, and the multiplier vs the naive salary÷2000 number."
Freelance Rate Skill
New freelancers price by dividing their old salary by 2,000 hours and wondering why they're broke by March. The employer was silently paying for benefits, taxes, tools, sales time, and dry spells — and now all of that lives inside the rate. This skill derives the rate backwards from target income through honest utilization, so the number arrives with its own justification attached — which is exactly what you need when a client asks why you charge it.
What This Skill Produces
Required revenue — target income + self-employment tax premium + business overhead
Honest billable hours — working weeks × hours × billable %, with the billable % defended
The rate — hourly and day rate, plus the multiplier vs naive salary÷2000
The justification narrative — the same math in client-safe words, for the "why so much?" conversation
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
Target pre-tax personal income — what they want to pay themselves, not what they hope to gross
Business overhead — insurance, tools, accounting, coworking (default $12,000/yr, labeled)
Deterministic. The tax premium default (8%) is a placeholder for the self-employment delta and varies by jurisdiction — set --extra-tax-pct to the user's real number or say it's the default.
Framework: The Utilization Honesty Rules
Billable % is the make-or-break input — sales calls, proposals, invoicing, learning, and gaps between clients are all unbillable; freelancers who assume 100% have priced their own bankruptcy
The employer's invisible spend is now yours — payroll-tax share, benefits, equipment, paid holidays: the reason market contract rates run 1.5–2.5× salary-equivalent hourly, and why that multiple is fair, not greedy
Derive backwards, not forwards — start from the life the rate must fund; "what do competitors charge" is a sanity check, not a derivation
Round up, not down — a rate you can discount from beats a rate you must survive on; anchoring low is nearly irreversible with an existing client
The rate is also a filter — clients who balk at a defensible rate are usually the ones who scope-creep; the math doubles as the screening mechanism