Hourly rate finder
Start from the pay you need to take home. Get the rate to charge, with income tax, both halves of CPP, costs and unpaid hours worked in, and a price for every service.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Say what you do and where. Then the pay you need to bring home each month, or add it up line by line.
- 2 Set your working year: days, hours, weeks off, holidays, sick days, and how much of the time is booked and paid.
- 3 List what the business costs, as you pay it, and what card and booking fees take.
- 4 Get the rate to charge, what each hour pays for, a price for every service, and the changes that would move it most. Print a price list or the worksheet.
Free, with no account. The sums run in your browser: your figures stay on this device and are never sent to us. Remember is off unless you turn it on, and then keeps them on this device only. The made-up example is never kept.
Good to know
- Why not just double what an employee earns?
- An employee is paid for holidays and sick days, and the employer pays half their CPP and all the rent and tools. Working for yourself, your rate pays for all of it, and only the hours a client books pay at all. So this works from the hours that actually get paid, not from 40 a week.
- Why both halves of CPP?
- Self-employed, you pay the employee and the employer contributions on your net business income, and CPP2 above the first earnings ceiling. Half is deducted on line 22200 of your return, which the estimate allows for.
- What about GST/HST?
- Once your sales pass $30,000 in four quarters in a row, you register and add GST/HST on top of your rate (verify). Clients see the rate before tax and with it. Registered, you claim back the GST/HST on most costs.
- How sure is the number?
- It's a 2026 estimate for a sole proprietor, and it leans high: no RRSP or other deductions, and the rate rounds up. Quebec income tax and QPP use your own rate. Guidance, not tax advice. Check with CRA or your accountant.
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