Freelance hourly rate benchmarks (2026)
What you should charge depends on discipline, region, and target take-home — not what some Reddit thread said in 2019. Below are live medians from real RevenueLab users, with the inter-quartile range so you can position yourself honestly inside or above the market.
Last updated: 2026-05-15 · Source: RevenueLab community benchmarks · Methodology
| Metric | Median | P25 – P75 | N |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate (all disciplines) | $95 | — | — |
| Annual revenue target | $120,000 | — | — |
| Billable hours / week | 25 | — | — |
| Effective take-homeAfter taxes, expenses, and unbilled time | $78,000 | — | — |
Run the numbers yourself
Plug your own assumptions into the underlying calculator and compare against the medians above.
Open Freelance Rate CalculatorMethodology
Medians + inter-quartile ranges across all RevenueLab Freelance Rate Calculator submissions. N≥3 required. We separate gross billed rate from effective take-home — the spread between the two is usually 30–45% once self-employment tax, software, and unbillable hours are stripped out.
Frequently asked
Why is my effective rate so much lower than my billed rate?
Three reasons: only ~50–60% of your week is actually billable, self-employment tax in the US is ~15.3% on top of income tax, and tools/insurance/software eat 5–10%. Always quote at 1.6–2x your target effective rate.
Should I charge hourly or by project?
Hourly protects you on scope creep; project pricing rewards efficiency. Most senior freelancers use a hybrid — fixed-price discovery and milestones, hourly for change requests.
Related definitions
Cite this stat page
When you quote these numbers, please link back so this dataset stays free to maintain.
RevenueLab. (2026). Freelance hourly rate benchmarks (2026). Retrieved 2026-05-15 from https://www.revenuelab.fyi/stats/freelance-rate