Billable hours calculator
This billable hours calculator turns your entries and hourly rate into billable revenue, applies a 6 or 15 minute billing increment, and shows your effective rate and utilization. Add a row per task, everything runs in your browser, no signup.
Billable hours calculator
Enter each task’s time as decimal (2.5), h:mm (2:30) or a range (9:00-11:30). Leave a row’s rate blank to use the default.
- 6.50 h raw · 6.50 h billed$585.00
- 0.75 h raw · 0.75 h billed$67.50
- 1.25 h raw · 1.25 h billed$112.50
8.50 h
8.50 h before rounding
$90.00/h
$765.00
Pick 6, 10, 15 or 30 minutes to see what rounding adds to this set of entries.
Everything the week actually took: admin, sales and email included.
21%
8.5 of 40 h
$19.13/h
revenue / all hours
20.51 h
to hit $8,000.00/mo
$90.00/h
revenue / billable hours
How to calculate billable hours
To calculate billable hours, total the time you spent on work a client agreed to pay for and multiply by your hourly rate. Ten billable hours at $80 is $800. For legal work, round each entry to the nearest 6 minutes (0.1 hour) first, and subtract non-billable time to find your real effective rate.
billable value = billable hours × hourly rate
example: 6.5 + 0.75 + 1.25 = 8.5 h, then 8.5 × $90 = $765
utilization = billable hours / hours worked
effective rate = revenue / hours worked
Billing increment chart: 6-minute and 15-minute rounding
Round each entry up to the next block, then sum the rounded entries. The tenths column is the 6-minute rule (1 to 6 minutes is 0.1, 7 to 12 is 0.2), the common legal convention. The quarter column is the 15-minute rule. This is a professional convention, not a law, so put the increment you use in your contract.
| Min | Tenths | Quarters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 2 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 3 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 4 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 5 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 6 | 0.10 | 0.25 |
| 7 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 8 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 9 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 10 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 11 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 12 | 0.20 | 0.25 |
| 13 | 0.30 | 0.25 |
| 14 | 0.30 | 0.25 |
| 15 | 0.30 | 0.25 |
| 16 | 0.30 | 0.50 |
| 17 | 0.30 | 0.50 |
| 18 | 0.30 | 0.50 |
| 19 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 20 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 21 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 22 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 23 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 24 | 0.40 | 0.50 |
| 25 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 26 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 27 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 28 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 29 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| 30 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| Min | Tenths | Quarters |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 32 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 33 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 34 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 35 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 36 | 0.60 | 0.75 |
| 37 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 38 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 39 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 40 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 41 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 42 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
| 43 | 0.80 | 0.75 |
| 44 | 0.80 | 0.75 |
| 45 | 0.80 | 0.75 |
| 46 | 0.80 | 1.00 |
| 47 | 0.80 | 1.00 |
| 48 | 0.80 | 1.00 |
| 49 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 50 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 51 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 52 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 53 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 54 | 0.90 | 1.00 |
| 55 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 56 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 57 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 58 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 59 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 60 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
Billable vs non-billable hours
Billable hours are the ones a client pays for: project work, calls, in-scope revisions. Non-billable hours keep the business running but reach no invoice: admin, sales, invoicing, learning. Both are real work, and the ratio between them is what your utilization measures. Billable vs non-billable hours covers where the line usually falls and the grey areas to settle up front.
Utilization and effective hourly rate
Utilization is billable hours divided by hours worked, and your effective rate is total revenue divided by all hours worked. They are the reason a $90 quoted rate can pay like $55: the non-billable time is unpaid but still real. Track both monthly, because a rate rise means nothing if utilization is quietly falling. Billable utilization rate has the full method and the sources, and the utilization rate calculator turns your billable and worked hours into the share and the effective rate in one step.
Where billable hours go missing
This calculator can only price the hours you remembered to enter. The ones that leak are the short, scattered tasks: the quick call, the two-minute fix, the context switch back into a client file. Reconstructed on invoice day, a week always comes up short, and every omission is in the client’s favour. The revenue leak calculator models the gap across a year, and how to stop losing billable hours covers the habits that close it.
Billable hours that record themselves
BillNotch records the active window as you work and sorts it into client projects, so the billable total is a sum the software keeps for you, not a figure you rebuild from memory. The scattered entries you would have forgotten are already on the sheet when it is time to invoice, and the Revenue Leak Finder flags billable work that was tracked but never billed.
It totals your time in decimal hours and leaves the rounding to you at invoice time. There is no built-in billing increment, so you apply your own 6-minute or 15-minute rule the way your contract sets it.
Related tools
- Hours to decimal calculator turns 7:30 into 7.5 so the total drops onto an invoice.
- Consulting rate calculator works out the hourly rate to charge from your income goal.
- Revenue leak calculator models the billable hours that go missing across a year.
- Timecard calculator adds clock-in and clock-out times into a weekly total.
Cite or embed this calculator
Free to reference or embed on your own site. A link back to this page is all we ask.
Billable Hours Calculator, BillNotch, billnotch.com/tools/billable-hours-calculatorThe reference chart is free to reuse on your own site, with a link back to this page.
Frequently asked questions
- What does 0.1 mean in billing?
- In tenth-of-an-hour billing, 0.1 equals 6 minutes, because 6 divided by 60 is 0.1. Lawyers and accountants log time in these blocks: 0.1 is 6 minutes, 0.2 is 12 minutes, 0.5 is 30 minutes, and 1.0 is a full hour. Each task is rounded up to the next tenth before it is billed.
- What is the difference between billable and non-billable hours?
- Billable hours are time a client pays for, such as project work, calls, and deliverables. Non-billable hours are time you cannot charge, such as admin, invoicing, marketing, and training. Both are real work, but only billable hours generate revenue, so tracking the split shows your true earning efficiency.
- What is a good billable utilization rate?
- Utilization is the share of your working hours that are billable. In common practice many freelancers bill roughly half to two-thirds of their time, with the rest going to admin, sales, and learning. A higher rate means more of your day earns money, but very high rates can signal overwork or under-pricing.
- What is an effective hourly rate?
- Your effective rate is total revenue divided by all hours worked, billable and non-billable. If you earn $800 from 10 billable hours but worked 16 hours in total, your effective rate is 800 divided by 16, or $50, not $80. It reveals how much unpaid time is quietly lowering your real earnings.
- How many billable hours a week is realistic?
- A common planning range is 20 to 30 billable hours out of a 40-hour week, a 50 to 75% utilization rate. No study measures freelancers specifically, but professional-services firms measured by SPI Research averaged 66.4% billable utilization in 2025. Treat it as a sanity check, not a target you must hit.
- How do I round time to billing increments?
- Pick an increment and round each entry to it. For 6-minute (0.1 hour) billing, a 4-minute call rounds up to 0.1 and a 7-minute call to 0.2. For 15-minute (0.25 hour) billing, work rounds to the next quarter hour. Rounding is applied per entry, then the rounded entries are summed.
- Can billable hours apply to salaried or full-time jobs?
- Yes. Salaried staff at agencies and firms often track billable hours so the employer can bill clients and measure utilization, even though the person is paid a fixed salary. The billable total drives client invoices and profitability, while the employee pay stays the same regardless of the hours logged.
- How much is 20 minutes in billable time?
- 20 minutes is 0.33 billable hours, because 20 divided by 60 is 0.333. Under six-minute (tenth) billing it rounds to 0.3 or the next tenth per your rule; under 15-minute billing it rounds to 0.25 or 0.5. Multiply the decimal by your hourly rate to price the entry.
- How many hours a week is 3,000 billable hours?
- Spread over a 50-week year, 3,000 billable hours is 60 billable hours a week, because 3,000 divided by 50 is 60. That is well above the 20 to 30 billable hours a week most freelancers manage, so a 3,000-hour year usually assumes long weeks or very high utilization.
- How many hours per day are 2000 billable hours?
- Across about 250 working days a year, 2,000 billable hours is 8 billable hours a day, because 2,000 divided by 250 is 8. Since billable time is only part of a working day, hitting 8 billed hours daily means a longer total day once admin and non-billable work are added.
Stop pricing only the hours you remember
This calculator prices the hours you remembered to enter. BillNotch captures the ones you would have forgotten, totals them in decimal, and leaves the rounding to you, so invoice day starts from a complete record instead of your memory.
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