Billable Hours Calculator
You do not bill every hour you work. Find out how many you actually bill — and what that does to your rate.
A forty-hour week is not forty billable hours, and pretending otherwise is how freelancers undercharge for years. This billable hours calculator starts from the hours you actually work — weeks per year and total hours per week — then subtracts the share that never appears on an invoice: admin, marketing, proposals that go nowhere, learning, and support. What remains is the billable time your rate has to live on, and the utilization rate tells you how much of your working life is actually paid. The insight is usually uncomfortable: at seventy percent utilization, every billable hour has to carry nearly half an hour of unpaid work on its back. That is why a rate that looks generous on paper can feel tight in practice, and why cutting non-billable time is often worth more than raising prices. Run the numbers honestly, then use the result to set a rate in the freelance rate calculator. All calculations run in your browser and nothing is stored.
Your numbers
Your billable time
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How to use the result
- Use annual billable hours as the divisor when you set your rate — dividing by total hours instead is the classic undercharging mistake.
- If utilization is under 60%, fix the non-billable work first: templates, batching admin, and saying no to unpaid discovery.
- Compare billable revenue with your income target. If it falls short, raise the rate or the utilization — not the hours.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as non-billable?
Admin, marketing, proposals, learning, support, and downtime between projects. If the client is not paying for the hour, it is non-billable — even if the work is necessary.
What is a good utilization rate?
Most freelancers land at 60–80%. Above 85% usually means no time for business development, which makes the next dry spell worse.
Should I bill for proposal time?
Short scoping calls are usually absorbed, but full specs and sample work should be paid discovery. Track proposal hours to see how much free work you are giving away.