Hourly Rate Calculation
I don't know if this will help, but this is a calculation I got from a book I read:
- Take the total number of working hours in a year (40 hrs x 52 weeks)
2,080 hours/year
- Subtract the non-billable hours in a year which breaks down to the following:
* 7 legal holidays = 56 hours
* 2 weeks vacation = 80 hours
* 5 sick days = 40 hours
------------------------------
Total non-billable: 176 hours (22 days)
- This will give you a total of 1,904 billable hours in a year
- Take what you want to gross in a year (for example: $50,000/year) and divide that yearly salary by the total billable hours:
50,0000
-------- = 26.260504
1,904
- Round up the total to a solid number, and that's what you charge per hour for your work
So, you would need to charge $27/hour and work 40 hours a week to give you an approximate yearly gross income of $50,000/year.
I put all the calculations into an Excel spreadsheet so that I can have it automatically calculate everything. That way, I can decrease/increase the number of hours a week, or increase/decrease the non-billable hours (add/subtract sick days, vacation days, etc.)
Hope this gives you a starting point for your freelancing. Other than that, you'd need to figure how much your time is worth and charge accordingly.