Find out how much of your working time you actually get paid for. Enter your available, worked and billable hours to see your billable and resource utilization, your real hourly rate and what hitting your target would be worth.
For freelancers, consultants and small studios · per week or per month
Utilization = hours ÷ available hours. Yearly figures assume every week looks like this one across 46 weeks.
Pick a period. Per week or per month, whichever matches how you track your time.
Enter your available hours: the time you could work in that period after holidays and days off. For a full-time freelancer that’s usually 35–40 hours a week.
Add hours worked and billable hours. Hours worked includes everything: client work, admin, sales and learning. Billable hours are only the ones you can put on an invoice.
Add your hourly rate and a target to see your effective hourly rate and what closing the gap would be worth over a year.
Utilization rate shows how much of your available time goes into work. It comes in two versions, and most of the insight is in the difference between them.
Resource utilization
The share of your available hours you spent working on anything at all, from client projects to bookkeeping.
Resource utilization = hours worked ÷ available hours × 100
Billable utilization
The share of your available hours you spent on work you can charge for. This is the number that drives your revenue.
Billable utilization = billable hours ÷ available hours × 100
A high resource rate with a low billable rate means you’re busy but not paid for much of it: too much admin, unpaid revisions or time spent finding the next client.
Say you have 40 hours available this week. You work 36 of them, and 27 go to client projects you can invoice at $90 an hour.
Resource utilization: 36 ÷ 40 = 90%
Billable utilization: 27 ÷ 40 = 67.5%
Revenue: 27 × $90 = $2,430
Effective hourly rate: $2,430 ÷ 36 = $67.50
So although you charge $90 an hour, each hour you actually work earns $67.50 on average. Raising billable utilization to 75%, or 30 hours, would add $270 a week, about $12,400 over 46 working weeks.
Team utilization
For a team, add up everyone’s hours first and then apply the same formulas. Here’s a studio of three people, each with 40 hours available a week:
Person
Hours worked
Billable hours
Billable utilization
Designer
38
31
77.5%
Developer
40
34
85%
Founder
42
14
35%
Team
120
79
65.8%
The founder’s low number is normal: running the business, selling and managing all take time. Compare each role with its own benchmark rather than with the team average.
There’s no single right number, but these ranges for billable utilization are common starting points:
Role
Typical billable utilization
Why
Solo freelancer
60–75%
Admin, sales and marketing all come out of your own week
Designer or developer at an agency
70–85%
Most of the week goes to client projects
Team lead or project manager
50–70%
Part of the job is coordinating other people
Agency owner
20–50%
Running the business is mostly non-billable
If you’re consistently above 85%, be careful. There’s little time left for finding new work, improving your skills or simply recovering, and the risk of burnout goes up.
Every freelance business needs non-billable time: answering emails, sending invoices, chasing payments, pitching, updating your portfolio and learning. The aim is to make that time deliberate and efficient, not to get rid of it. If your income target only works at close to 100% billable utilization, the problem is usually your rate, not your schedule.
To check whether your rate leaves enough room, compare it with average freelance rates in your field.
Track all of your time. You can’t fix what you don’t measure, and small tasks add up quickly.
Batch admin work. Handle email, invoicing and bookkeeping in one or two fixed slots a week.
Charge for extra revisions and calls. Put a revision limit and an hourly rate for additional work in your contract.
Scope projects carefully. Work that wasn’t in the estimate turns billable hours into free ones.
Look for retainers. Ongoing clients cut the time you spend selling between projects.
Raise your rate. If your utilization is already high, a higher rate grows your income without longer weeks.
Your billable utilization is only as accurate as your timesheet. Log your hours day by day with our billable hours calculator, then bring the weekly total back here.
What is the formula for utilization rate?
What’s the difference between resource and billable utilization?
What is a good billable utilization rate for a freelancer?
How many billable hours should I work per week?
Should I count holidays in available hours?
Can utilization be over 100%?
Is utilization the same as productivity?
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