Fractional CFO & Business Consultant
Rate Calculator
Calculate your fractional CFO or financial consulting rate based on the high strategic value you provide and lower billable hour capacity.
Customize your numbers
We've pre-filled the baseline scenario for this profession. Adjust the inputs below to match your actual business goals.
Plan the business behind your income goal.
Start with what you want to take home. We'll work backward through taxes, expenses, time off, billable capacity, revenue, and pricing to build a practical freelance financial plan.
Start with a scenario, then customize the numbers.
Build your financial plan
Enter your goals and operating assumptions to calculate the revenue and rate your business needs.
What you want to personally keep after estimated taxes and business expenses.
Software, equipment, insurance, accounting, marketing, and other operating costs.
Only count time clients realistically pay you for—not proposals, admin, marketing, or unpaid meetings.
At 15 billable hours per week, you have roughly 25 hours each week for proposals, admin, sales, meetings, bookkeeping, and other non-billable work.
Weeks you plan to be away from billable client work.
Starting estimate for United States. Adjust this based on your own situation.
Tax calculations are estimates based on the percentage you provide. They are not a tax return, tax advice, or a substitute for advice from a qualified tax professional.
Based on your current assumptions
Recommended annual revenue
Revenue target designed to support your income goal while adding a 20% operating safety margin and local market adjustment.
Your plan protects a lot of time outside client work. Your required rate will need to be higher to support the income goal.
Your plan at a glance
The numbers that matter most when planning your freelance business.
Where your required revenue goes
Your minimum revenue target must cover personal income, estimated taxes, and business operating expenses.
Can your schedule support the goal?
Your revenue target is directly connected to how much client-billable work you can realistically complete.
Your safety margin
Your recommended pricing target creates additional annual revenue above the minimum required to support your financial goal.
Turn the annual goal into a working plan
Your United States freelance business needs to generate $314,640 per year.
That supports your $180,000 take-home goal, accounts for $8,500 in business expenses and your estimated 30% tax rate, while including a 20% operating safety margin.
Your rate is more than your salary.
Fractional executives and management consultants operate differently than standard freelancers. Because you are context-switching between multiple high-level strategic roles across different companies, billing 40 hours a week is impossible. Your rate must reflect a lower cap on billable hours (often 15-20 max) while accounting for professional liability insurance and financial modeling tools.
A sustainable rate needs to account for the time you spend finding clients, answering emails, preparing proposals, managing projects, handling revisions, and doing administrative work.
Common Pricing Models
Highly-Billed Services
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The Freelance Stack
Tools to help you run the business, track expenses, and get paid faster.
FreshBooks
Accounting & Invoicing
Track expenses, create invoices, manage projects, and keep your finances organized.
Wise Business
Cross-Border Payments
Receive international payments and manage multiple currencies with transparent rates.
Deel
Contracts & Compliance
Create contractor agreements and manage international freelance relationships.
Stop guessing your rate.
Build a freelance rate around the income you actually want, the expenses you actually have, and the hours you can realistically bill.