day rate

Lets assume I want to have the average income of an office employee (in germany thats ca. 40000 EUR gross - german wikipedia)

• So, we start with 40000 EUR per year (the comparable employee gross income)
• As I am a freelancer, I have to add the bits that an employer usually caries (germany: 32% - german wikipedia), so now we are at 52800 EUR
• To that I have to add cost for running my business (travel, laptop, phone, tax consultant etc.). Lets say 6000 EUR
• So, the yearly turnover would need to be 58800 EUR per year

Now, lets earn this turnover:

• Assuming 2 months for holidays and sickness, this money needs to be earned in 10 months
• Within each month, paper work, client meetings, learning etc. must be done. So, I assume the amount of billable days amounts to 13 days per month.

Hence: 58800 EUR / 10 Months / 13 Days = 452 EUR per day.

Here a little table that shows the numbers for different comparable employee gross incomes (leftmost column) and the resulting day rate (rightmost column). Also check the linked spreadsheet if you want to modify numbers.