Billable Hours Calculator
Built & reviewed by Nandu Kannan · Overtime rules cited to primary statutes
Total your week by client or project: billable hours × rate per row gives revenue, your average effective rate, and your utilization percentage — the number that tells you whether your week actually paid.
Add a row per client or project with the billable hours and rate for the week.
| Client / project | Hours | Rate ($/hr) |
|---|
Utilization
Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded or stored.
How it works
Revenue = Σ (hours × rate) per client ·
Average effective rate = revenue ÷ billable hours ·
Utilization % = billable hours ÷ total working hours.
Freelancers typically sustain 60–70% utilization — the
rest of the week goes to sales, admin and email. If you want to capture
more of it, log time as you work with one of the
best time-tracking apps.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as billable hours?
Work a client has agreed to pay for: building, designing, writing, consulting calls, project-specific research and revisions inside scope. Non-billable time includes marketing, proposals, invoicing, bookkeeping, general learning and internal admin. If your contract covers meetings and email about the project, those are billable too — many freelancers forget to log them.
What is a good utilization rate?
Utilization is billable hours ÷ total working hours. For freelancers and consultants, 60–70% is strong; agencies often target 75–85% for delivery staff. If you are below 50%, either too much time goes to admin and sales, or you do not have enough client work — the fix is different in each case, which is why measuring it matters.
How do I track billable hours?
Log time as you work, not from memory at the end of the week — recalled timesheets routinely lose 10–20% of real billable time. Use a timer app or a simple log with client, task, start and stop times, round consistently (6-minute increments are the legal-industry standard), and total by client weekly. This calculator handles the totaling step.
What is the difference between billable and actual hours?
Actual hours are everything you worked; billable hours are the subset you can invoice. A 45-hour week might contain 28 billable hours — the other 17 went to sales, admin and switching costs. Your effective hourly income is revenue ÷ actual hours, which is why your charged rate must be much higher than the hourly wage you would accept as an employee.
How is billable revenue calculated?
Hours × rate, summed per client. If you charge different rates, the average effective rate (total revenue ÷ total hours) shows what your time really earns — useful for spotting clients who pay below your floor.
Related tools
Freelance Rate Calculator · Invoice Generator · Hours Calculator
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