Audit the rate floor.

1. Working weeks52 - weeks off

   Removes vacation, illness, public holidays, and other full weeks when client delivery is unavailable.

2. Annual billable hoursworking weeks x total weekly hours x billable utilization

   Reduces total working capacity by the share spent on sales, administration, learning, and other non-invoice work.

3. Required gross revenue(target take-home + fixed costs) / (1 - tax rate - variable overhead rate)

   Uses reverse margin math so the remaining dollars close to the selected target after the percentage allowances and fixed costs.

4. Client quoteceil(gross revenue / billable hours)

   Preserves the exact rate for audit, then rounds the recommended hourly quote upward to a whole dollar.

Suppose the target remainder is $80,000 and tax plus variable overhead equals 40% of gross revenue. Adding 40% to the target produces $112,000. Removing 40% from that amount leaves only $67,200, a $12,800 shortfall.

Reverse margin math divides $80,000 by the 60% that remains. The result is $133,333.33. Forty percent, or $53,333.33, is assigned to the two allowances and exactly $80,000 remains. The equation closes because the percentages are defined as shares of gross revenue, not additions to the target.

These cases use the same public equation as the browser calculator. Values are shown before any negotiation premium beyond the explicit day-rate setting.

To reproduce the standard case, enter four weeks off, 40 weekly hours, 70% utilization, 28% tax set-aside, 12% variable overhead, no fixed costs, and an $80,000 target. The total working capacity is 1,920 hours, billable capacity is 1,344 hours, and required revenue is $133,333.33.

Working weeks have a minimum of one after weeks off are validated between zero and 51. Weekly hours must be positive. Billable utilization is accepted from 10% through 100%. The combined tax set-aside and variable overhead cannot exceed 85%, leaving at least 15% of gross revenue for fixed costs and the target remainder.

The interface does not silently repair blank or invalid input. It pauses the result and explains the first issue. The exact hourly floor retains cents. The displayed hourly recommendation uses upward whole-dollar rounding. Floating-point values within a tiny machine tolerance of a whole dollar are treated as that whole dollar, preventing a value such as 770.0000000000001 from becoming 771 because of binary arithmetic noise.

Rounding happens before the day rate. For a $99.21 exact floor, the hourly quote becomes $100. With an eight-hour standard day and 15% premium, the day quote is $920. This intentionally protects the floor rather than recreating an unrounded internal value.

The optional occupation comparison uses the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics May 2025 national cross-industry estimates, released in May 2026. The source covers wage and salary employees and excludes self-employed workers. RateFloor therefore labels every number as an employee wage reference, never as a freelance market rate.

Each visible role maps to one Standard Occupational Classification code. Direct occupation matches are labeled exact. Broader or adjacent matches are labeled nearest. The local dataset stores the BLS title, SOC code, mapping label, hourly 25th, median, 75th, and 90th percentiles, and annual median. A deterministic offline script checks the record count, required fields, SOC format, percentile order, and file-size limit.

The benchmark is deliberately downstream of the calculator. Selecting a role does not alter any income, capacity, cost, or quote value. If the reference file fails to load, the pricing calculation continues.

• BLS OEWS national occupation estimatesPrimary wage reference and occupation definitions.
• BLS OEWS frequently asked questionsCoverage, exclusions, estimates, and program limitations.

RateFloor Editorial is the public author for formulas, examples, guides, and source notes. It is an independent publisher identity and does not claim CPA review, government approval, or credentials it does not hold. A real review date appears on each substantive page.

Formula changes require a regression test, a matching worked example, and a visible methodology update. Source changes require a source-period update and local dataset validation. Content pages must answer a distinct pricing decision, show a reproducible example or interaction, disclose assumptions and limits, and connect the reader to the relevant tool.

Corrections can be sent to [email protected]. Include the page, disputed value, reproduction steps, and a primary source when available.

In the project-fee and rush-fee tools, the combined revenue set-aside is the same tax plus variable-overhead percentage used for the hourly floor. It applies to the full invoice, including amounts collected for new direct purchases. This is a planning convention, not a determination of tax treatment.

For a project, let L be the hourly floor multiplied by funded project hours, C the additional direct cost, f the combined revenue set-aside, and r the project risk reserve. The minimum fee is ceil((L x (1 - f) + C) / (1 - f - r)). This preserves the original labor remainder after set-asides, purchases, and a risk reserve that is itself a share of total revenue. The combined f + r must stay below 100%.

For a rush quote, add incremental capacity at the hourly floor and C / (1 - f) for additional purchases to the already-funded base fee. No new risk reserve is implied. Extra customer operations belong in these tools only when they have not already been covered by the annual utilization allowance.

A maximum discount must round downward to a usable limit; a minimum premium must round upward. Scope-change results describe amounts still needed after approved changes, never charges to add a second time.

Checked examples: a $1,000 labor quote, $1,000 purchase, 40% set-aside and zero risk need $2,667, not $2,000. A $126 list rate with a $110 contract floor permits a 12% whole-percent discount, not 13%. Invalid or empty numeric inputs replace live outputs with Not available until corrected.