Creative rate calculator

How much should I charge?

Your freelance rate, or the salary to ask for, set against what the market pays. For editors, designers, writers, photographers, podcasters and more.

Looked after by Tally, a price tag.

Charge at least$69/hr

Project prices at $69 an hour

60-second short (Reels, TikTok, Shorts)$120
10-minute YouTube video$640
Hour-long podcast episode (video)$480
30-second ad$480
Wedding highlight film$1,600

Hours are our starting guesses: set them to how long the work takes you. Each revision round adds 15% of the hours; rush adds 25%. Prices round up.

Charge at least

$69 /hour

$552 a day. 1,150 billable hours a year. Put aside $17 of every hour for tax.

Your income target is around the 50th percentile for employed Film and Video Editors, US (BLS, May 2025).

Your rate is around the 88th percentile of employees' hourly pay (BLS, May 2025). Freelance rates should sit above employee pay: they carry the costs and the unbilled time.

Upwork puts freelance video editors at $10–$60 an hour worldwide (Upwork, May 2026). Yours is about $69, above that range.

The link holds only the numbers above. Nothing is saved or sent.

Video editor pay in full, by state and country. All creative pay data, updated 2 October 2026.

How the numbers work

Freelance rate

Your rate is the income you want plus a year of business costs, divided by the hours you can bill in a year (billable hours a week times 52 weeks less your weeks off). A project price is that rate times the hours the project takes, plus 15% of the hours for each revision round and 25% for a rush job. Those two percentages, the starting hours and the starting costs are our assumptions, there to be changed.

Where you sit

The percentiles are what employees in the role earn, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025), the UK's Office for National Statistics (April 2025, full-time, provisional) and Job Bank Canada (2023–24, hourly, shown times 2,080 hours for a year). Australia publishes only an average. Between published points the calculator draws straight lines; beyond the 10th and 90th it can only say below or above.

Platform rates

Upwork, Fiverr and the surveys describe their own marketplaces and members, worldwide and in US dollars. They are a reference, not a floor: a rate below them is not wrong, and a rate above them is common for specialists.

Every source, with its date and licence.

Questions

How do I work out my freelance hourly rate?
Add the income you want to a year of business costs, then divide by the hours you can bill in a year: billable hours a week times the weeks you work. Not every working hour is billable, because admin, pitching and finding clients take time too, so the rate comes out higher than a salary divided by 2,080.
How much should a freelance video editor charge?
It depends on the income you want and the hours you can bill. For reference, the median employed film and video editor in the US earns $36.26 an hour (BLS, May 2025), and Upwork puts freelance video editors at $10 to $60 an hour worldwide (Upwork, May 2026). Pick Video editor above to work out yours.
What salary should I ask for?
Switch to Salary. The calculator shows the official pay percentiles for the role in your country (and state, in the US) and suggests a band for your experience: the 25th to 50th percentile when starting out, 50th to 75th when experienced, and 75th to 90th when senior. Official surveys are not split by experience, so the bands are our reading of the distribution, not a statistic.
Where do the market figures come from?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025), the UK Office for National Statistics (April 2025, provisional), Job Bank Canada (2023–24) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (May 2025), plus freelance figures quoted from Upwork, Fiverr and published surveys. Every one is listed with its date on the creative pay data page.
Is anything I type saved or sent?
No. The numbers stay in your browser. The share link carries only the choices and numbers in the calculator, nothing about you.

This tool is looked after by Tally.Level-headed about money. Will not let you undercharge.

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