How much to charge as a freelance editor
Employed editors in the US earn a median $37.46 an hour ($77,920 a year), according to the BLS. A freelancer who wants the same pay has to cover unbilled hours, business costs and the employer half of payroll taxes, which with the assumptions below works out to roughly $71.18 an hour, about 1.9× the employee median.
What employed editors earn (BLS)
| Measure (US, May 2025) | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $27.55 | $57,304* |
| Median | $37.46 | $77,920 |
| 75th percentile | $51.01 | $106,101* |
| Employment | 91,690 jobs | |
* Hourly × 2,080, the full-time year the BLS uses for annual figures. The category covers people who plan, review and revise content for publication. OEWS counts wage and salary employees only; it does not survey the self-employed, and its wages exclude benefits. So this is a benchmark for what an employer would pay, not a survey of freelance rates.
From employee wage to freelance rate
An employee is paid for about 2,080 hours a year. A freelancer only bills some of their hours; the rest goes to finding clients, admin, invoicing and unpaid gaps. Our formula:
hourly rate = (target income × 1.0648 + business costs + benefits you fund)
÷ billable hours ÷ (1 − payment fee %)
- 1.0648: self-employment tax is 15.3% (IRS), applied to 92.35% of net earnings, which is 14.13%; an employee pays 7.65% themselves, so the extra is about 6.48%. This is an approximation; it ignores the Social Security wage cap and the income-tax deduction for half of SE tax.
- Business costs: we use $6,000/year as an example (software, equipment, insurance, accounting). This is our assumption, not a statistic. Use your own.
- Billable hours: we show 1,000, 1,250 and 1,500 hours a year as scenarios. Again, assumptions: count your own.
| Target income | Annual | 1,000 h | 1,250 h | 1,500 h |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $57,304 | $67.02 | $53.61 | $44.68 |
| Median | $77,920 | $88.97 | $71.18 | $59.31 |
| 75th percentile | $106,101 | $118.98 | $95.18 | $79.32 |
Hourly rates needed, before payment-processor fees and before any health insurance or retirement contributions you add.
Your rate calculator
- Day rate
- –
- Revenue needed per year
- –
- Revenue needed per month
- –
- Of which SE tax top-up
- –
Turning the hourly floor into quotes
Many freelance editors price per word or per page for copyediting and proofreading, per hour for developmental or structural editing. Whatever the unit, estimate the hours behind it and check the quote against your floor with the project quote calculator.
Tip: Ask for a sample chapter or page before quoting; the condition of the manuscript changes your hourly pace a lot.
For the full method (time off, non-billable share, tax set-aside) see how to calculate your freelance hourly rate and how much to set aside for taxes.
Free tool and invoice kit
Run your full numbers in the free freelance hourly rate calculator (no sign-up, runs in your browser). To quote, invoice and chase payment from one spreadsheet: