Contractor Hourly Rate Calculator
The full-time salary you want your contracting income to match.
Annual leave, sick days, admin and quiet periods you can't bill for.
Add 12% so you can self-fund the super an employer would otherwise pay.
Required hourly rate
$72.73
Required day rate
$509.09
Billable hours a year
1,540 hrs
To match a $90,000 equivalent full-time salary before tax, self-funding your own super, and covering 10% business running costs over 1,540 billable hours a year, you need to charge around $72.73 an hour, or $509.09 a day.
Quick answer
To match a $90,000 full-time salary as a contractor, you typically need to charge about $72.73 an hour, or roughly $509 a day. That figure grosses up your target salary for the 12% super an employer would otherwise pay, adds a margin for business running costs, then divides by your annual billable hours.
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Contractor Hourly Rate Calculator is one of pay, contractor and work tools on OneCalculate — see the full set for this category.
Browse Pay & ContractorHow it works
Most rate tools start from a rate and tell you what you’ll end up with. This contractor rate calculator australia contractors, freelancers and sole traders use works the other way around: it starts from the full-time salary you want your contracting income to match, and solves backwards for the rate. Think of it as a day rate salary calculator and a salary calculator from day rate purposes combined into one reverse tool — you set the destination, it works out the rate needed to get there.
The maths runs in four steps:
Funded package = Target salary × (1 + 12% super, if self-funding)
Grossed-up package = Funded package ÷ (1 − business running costs %)
Billable weeks = 52 − non-billable weeks
Required hourly rate = Grossed-up package ÷ (billable hours per week × billable weeks)
Required day rate = Required hourly rate × (billable hours per week ÷ 5)The 12% super figure is the current Superannuation Guarantee rate that an employer would otherwise pay on top of a salary — as a contractor, adding it back onto your target is what lets you self-fund the same super contributions. Business running costs (insurance, software, accounting, unpaid admin time) don’t have a single official percentage, so this tool lets you set your own margin; 10% is a reasonable starting point for a solo contractor with modest overheads.
The salary figure you enter is a pre-tax, gross target — the same basis used by the ATO’s individual income tax brackets — not a net take-home figure. That keeps this tool focused on rate-setting rather than take-home pay; if you want to see what a given rate leaves you after tax, use the net-to-gross income calculator instead.
Worked example
Jordan is a graphic designer in Perth moving from a permanent design role paying $90,000 a year into contracting. He wants his contracting income to match that $90,000 equivalent, and he’ll need to fund his own super rather than rely on an employer, since nobody pays Superannuation Guarantee on his invoices. Grossing up $90,000 by 12% super gives a funded package of $100,800. Adding a 10% margin for business running costs (insurance, software, and an afternoon a fortnight on admin) grosses that up further to $112,000. Jordan plans to work 35 billable hours a week and budgets 8 non-billable weeks a year for leave and gaps between contracts, leaving 44 billable weeks — 1,540 billable hours for the year. Dividing $112,000 by 1,540 hours gives a required hourly rate of $72.73, or a day rate of $509.09 on a 7-hour billable day.
If Jordan skipped self-funding his own super, he’d only need to gross up for running costs, not super — a lower rate, but no retirement contributions being made on his behalf either.
| Funded package | Required hourly rate | Required day rate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-funding super | $112,000 | $72.73/hr | $509.09 |
| Not self-funding super | $100,000 | $64.94/hr | $454.55 |
Frequently asked questions
How do I work out what hourly rate to charge as a contractor?
Start from the full-time salary you want your contracting income to match, gross it up for the super and business running costs you now cover yourself, then divide by the hours you can realistically bill in a year. This contractor rate calculator does that maths for you instantly.
Why does this calculator add 12% for super when I'm a contractor?
As an employee your employer pays 12% Superannuation Guarantee on top of your salary. As a contractor invoicing for your services, nobody pays that for you, so you need to charge enough to fund your own super contributions if you want retirement savings to keep pace with an employee's.
What counts as business running costs in a contractor rate calculator?
Business running costs cover insurance, accounting and bookkeeping fees, software subscriptions, equipment, marketing, and any unpaid admin time spent on invoicing or finding work. A 10% margin is a common starting point, but track your actual costs for a few months and adjust the slider to match.
Is the target salary a gross figure or a net take-home figure?
It's a pre-tax gross salary figure — the equivalent full-time package you want your contracting income to match before tax, not a net take-home target. If you want to see your net take-home pay from a given rate instead, use the net-to-gross income calculator.
How many hours a year can a contractor realistically bill?
Most contractors can't bill all 52 weeks — annual leave, sick days, public holidays and gaps between contracts all eat into billable time. Budgeting 6 to 10 non-billable weeks a year, leaving roughly 42 to 46 billable weeks, is a realistic starting assumption for most independent contractors.
What's the difference between this calculator and a day rate calculator?
A day rate calculator usually converts a rate you already have between hourly and daily terms. This calculator works the other way round: it starts from the full-time salary you want to match and tells you what rate to set in the first place, before you've settled on a number.
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Written and verified by Nirbhay Tripathi
Last updated 18 August 2026
All rates on this page are verified againstATO — Super guarantee percentage, ATO — Tax rates, Australian residentson 18 August 2026. See our methodology for the full update calendar.