Plan your income

Pay Yourself a Salary Calculator

Good months and bad months? Pay yourself the same amount every month from a buffer account.

How to pay yourself as a freelancer

Irregular income is stressful because personal bills arrive every month. The fix is to separate the two: all client payments go into a business account, and you pay yourself a fixed monthly amount from it.

Salary = (last year's income × (1 − tax rate) − business costs) ÷ 12 × safety margin. The safety margin (e.g. 85%) leaves room for a slower year.

Frequently asked questions

How big should a freelancer's buffer be?

Three to six months of your salary is a common target. The more irregular your income, the bigger the buffer you need.

What if I've freelanced for less than a year?

Use your expected income for the next 12 months, but be conservative — and lower the "pay yourself" percentage until you have a full year of data.

Add this calculator to your site

Free for blogs, newsletters, communities and course pages. Paste this code where you want the calculator to appear.

All embeddable calculators

Related calculators

Freelance Runway CalculatorFreelance Income Goal CalculatorFreelance Break-Even CalculatorFreelance Hourly Rate CalculatorContractor vs Employee CalculatorProject Pricing CalculatorAll 20 tools →

Rate calculators by profession

ConsultantGraphic DesignerPhotographerVideo EditorVirtual AssistantWeb DeveloperWriter & Copywriter