Effective hourly rate calculator
The rate on your invoice and the rate you actually earn are different numbers. This one counts the unpaid hours, the expenses, and the tax.
Estimate only. Figures update as you type. Not tax advice — see the note at the bottom of this page.
Where the money quietly goes
Three things separate the rate you quote from the rate you keep. Unbilled hours are usually the largest: scoping calls, revision rounds, chasing invoices, and travel are real work that no client line-item covers. Direct costs come next. Tax comes last, and it's the one people forget until spring.
Use it to rank work, not to feel bad
The most useful thing this number does is compare clients. A high-rate client with endless revisions can quietly pay less per hour than a lower-rate client who leaves you alone. Run both and the pattern usually becomes obvious fast, and it often contradicts your gut.
The revision spiral
Unbilled hours concentrate in a small number of relationships. If one client consistently produces triple the unbilled time of everyone else, that's not a pricing problem, it's a scope problem, and it's usually fixed in the contract rather than the invoice.
Common questions
What counts as an unbilled hour?
Any time the work consumed that you didn't invoice: discovery calls, proposals, out-of-scope revisions, invoicing and follow-up, travel, and research. If the engagement caused the hour to exist, it counts.
Why is the mileage figure higher than my gas cost?
It approximates the full cost of operating a vehicle including depreciation, maintenance, and insurance, not just fuel.
Does this replace time tracking?
It works best alongside it. Even rough tracking makes the unbilled-hours input far more accurate, and that input drives the result more than anything else here.