What does two weeks off actually cost me?

Freelancers don't get paid holiday. But the cost of a week off isn't just the week's lost revenue — it's the pre-earning you need to do first (because tax doesn't take time off either), the client coverage you need to arrange, and the knock-on hit if you can't shift your utilisation up in the surrounding weeks. This calculator does the honest number so you can budget for breaks instead of avoiding them.

Holiday cost calculator

How to actually pay for time off

1. Pre-sell. Lock in enough work for the two months before you go so the invoices land before you leave. Your bank balance when you go on holiday should already include the cost of the holiday.
2. Lift the pre-holiday utilisation. Clear admin, call clients earlier, batch delivery. The uplift-per-remaining-day figure in the output is what you're trying to earn.
3. Use a dedicated holiday pot. Treat it like VAT or tax — a fixed % of every invoice. If you want 20 days off per year at 70% utilisation, that's roughly 5% of annual revenue going into the pot.
4. Protect the return week. Don't schedule a demo for your first day back. The real cost of a bad return week is lost sleep in the holiday itself.