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Billable Hours Target Calculator

Enter your income goal, hourly rate, and working weeks.

How it is calculated

The tool works backwards from revenue to hours. hours per year = income goal ÷ hourly rate, then hours per week = hours per year ÷ working weeks. It also shows a utilization figure, utilization = hours per week ÷ 40 × 100, which compares your weekly billable hours with a 40-hour week. Income goal and rate must be in the same currency, and the working weeks are the weeks you really expect to bill, after holidays, sick days and slow periods. Rate and weeks must be greater than zero. The goal is treated as revenue: nothing is deducted for tax, expenses or unpaid admin time, so set the goal to the gross amount you need to invoice. Yearly hours are shown as whole numbers and weekly hours with one decimal.

Worked example

A consultant wants to invoice 90,000 a year at 75 an hour and expects 46 working weeks. Hours per year: 90,000 ÷ 75 = 1,200 hrs/yr. Hours per week: 1,200 ÷ 46 = 26.1 hrs/wk. Utilization: 26.087 ÷ 40 = 65.22%. In other words, about 26 billable hours every working week, or roughly two-thirds of a 40-hour week; the rest of the week must cover admin, sales and other unbilled work.

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Common mistakes

  • Entering 52 working weeks. Holidays, public days off and sick time shrink the weeks you can bill, which pushes the weekly hours up.
  • Treating the income goal as take-home pay. The tool works on invoiced revenue, so taxes, insurance and business costs must be added to the goal first.
  • Reading the weekly hours as total hours worked. Billable hours are only the part you can invoice; admin and prospecting come on top.
  • Mixing currencies or periods, such as a monthly goal with a yearly number of weeks.
  • Ignoring a utilization figure close to or above 100%. It means the goal needs a higher rate rather than more hours.

About this calculator

For freelancers and professionals who bill by the hour — lawyers, consultants, accountants, freelance developers — annual income isn't simply hourly rate times a standard work year, because not every hour worked is billable. Time spent on admin, business development, unpaid vacation, and non-client work all reduce the hours actually available to invoice, so hitting an income goal requires working backwards from that goal to the real billable-hour target.

This calculator divides your annual income goal by your hourly rate and working weeks to find the billable hours you need per year and per week. It's a practical planning tool used when setting freelance rates, evaluating whether a rate increase or more clients is needed, and sanity-checking whether an income goal is realistic given the number of weeks actually available to bill in a year.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    The utilization figure always compares your weekly billable hours with a fixed 40 hour week. If you normally work 30 or 50 hours in total, ignore that percentage and compare the weekly hours with your own total instead. A good use is to run the same goal at three different hourly rates and see how many fewer billable hours a modest rate rise would let you work. What billable share of your total week do you realistically manage?

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