What Percentage of Your Time Should Be Billable as a Freelancer?
One of the biggest mistakes in freelance rate-setting is assuming you'll bill every hour you work. You won't. Nobody does.
What counts as non-billable?
- Writing proposals and estimates
- Client emails and status calls (often unbilled)
- Invoicing and bookkeeping
- Marketing and networking
- Learning new tools or skills
- Fixing your own website (ironic, but true)
- Chasing late payments
For most freelancers, 30–50% of work time is non-billable. That means if you work 40 hours, you might only invoice 20–28 of them.
Realistic billable percentages by experience
| Stage | Typical billable % |
|---|---|
| New freelancer (lots of pitching) | 40–50% |
| Established (steady clients) | 55–65% |
| Senior (premium rates, selective) | 60–70% |
| Agency owner (managing team) | 30–45% |
If you're just starting out and spending half your time on proposals that don't convert, 45% billable is honest. Build that into your rate — don't pretend you'll bill 80%.
Why this matters for your rate
Here's the impact. Say you want $75,000 take-home and you work 48 weeks × 40 hours = 1,920 hours/year.
- At 80% billable (unrealistic): 1,536 billable hours → need ~$65/hr grossed up
- At 60% billable (realistic): 1,152 billable hours → need ~$87/hr grossed up
- At 50% billable (honest for beginners): 960 billable hours → need ~$104/hr grossed up
That's a $40/hour difference between fantasy math and reality.
How to track your actual billable %
For two weeks, log every hour:
- Billable — directly invoiced to a client
- Business development — proposals, networking, portfolio
- Admin — email, invoicing, taxes
- Learning — courses, tutorials, experimenting
Your real percentage might surprise you. Most freelancers discover they're billing less than they assumed.
Build it into your rate
Don't try to bill more hours by skipping admin — you'll burn out. Instead, charge enough per billable hour to cover the full picture.
Our Freelance Rate Calculator has a billable % slider built in. Start at 60%, adjust based on your tracking, and see how it changes your required hourly rate.
The goal isn't to bill every minute. It's to price your billable minutes high enough that the non-billable ones don't bankrupt you.