OwedRate.

Methodology

Every number on OwedRate is either arithmetic you can check, or a sourced real-world fact with a verification date. This page explains both halves.

Salary benchmarks

Rate pages start from the median full-time salary for a profession in a country. We prefer official statistics — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the UK Office for National Statistics, Statistics Canada / Job Bank, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Jobs and Skills Australia, and Ireland’s CSO — and fall back to major salary aggregators (Indeed, Talent.com, Glassdoor, PayScale) where an occupation has no clean official category. Each figure shows its source and the date we last verified it, directly under the calculator.

The freelance rate formula

A freelance rate is not a salary divided by 2,080 hours. Our calculator applies four adjustments, all editable on every page:

  • Overhead (default 25%): equipment, software, insurance, workspace, accounting — costs an employer would otherwise carry.
  • Tax buffer (country default): set-aside for income tax and self-employment/social contributions, applied to income plus overhead.
  • Billable time (default 60%): admin, marketing, and proposals are unpaid; only part of a working week is billable.
  • Working weeks (default 46): holidays, sick days, and dry spells come out of your calendar, not a client’s.

hourly = (salary + overhead + tax buffer) ÷ (weeks × hours × billable%) — rounded up to the nearest 5.
day rate = hourly × 7.5, rounded to the nearest 25.

Experience bands are derived multiplicatively: junior ×0.7, mid ×1.0, senior ×1.4 — consistent with typical spreads in published salary distributions.

Hourly ↔ salary conversions

The employee view uses the standard 2,080-hour year (40 hours × 52 weeks). The freelancer view uses 40 hours × 46 working weeks at 60% billable — the same defaults as the rate calculator, so numbers agree across the site.

Late payment interest

Statutory rules are taken from official legislative or government sources for each jurisdiction — the rate, its basis (for example “central bank reference rate + 8 percentage points”), and any fixed compensation fees. Interest is computed as simple daily interest: amount × (annual rate ÷ 365) × days overdue, plus fixed fees where the jurisdiction provides them. Where a reference rate resets on a schedule (the UK and EU reset semi-annually), we record which reset period our rate reflects.

Verification cadence

Each data record carries a lastVerified date shown on the page. We re-verify statutory rates at each reference-rate reset window and salary data when sources publish new editions. Found something stale? Tell us — corrections are prioritised.