Billable hours, explained
What are billable hours?
Billable hours are the time a client pays for directly. Everything else you do in a week keeps the business running but never reaches an invoice. Getting the line between the two right is what keeps a freelance week honest.
The short answer
Time a client pays for, and time that keeps you running
A billable hour is focused work on a client's project, the kind you can put on an invoice with a straight face. A non-billable hour is everything around it: real work, but work the client is not paying for by the hour. Both fill your week. Only one fills your invoice, and mixing them up is how a full desk turns into a thin month.
Billable
- Project work you were hired to do
- Client calls and meetings that are part of the scope
- Consulting or strategy time the client agreed to bill
- Revisions and delivery a client signed off on
Not billable
- Quoting, proposals, and chasing new work
- Email, admin, and invoicing
- Your own tools, learning, and context switching
The words for it
Billable, chargeable, invoiceable: the same hour
You will see the same thing under a few names. Billable hours, chargeable hours, invoiceable hours: all of it means time a client pays for. There is no difference worth worrying about; use whichever word your client uses.
The distinction that actually matters is not the name, it is billable versus non-billable. Get that line right and your rate, your quotes, and your week all rest on the same honest number. Get it wrong, usually by counting desk hours as billable ones, and every plan you make is quietly too full.
Tracking them
How to keep track of billable hours
Tracking billable hours does not need a spreadsheet full of formulas. It needs one habit: log time against the task you did it for, while it is fresh, and mark whether it was client work or not. Do that for a couple of weeks and the shape of your real week appears on its own. In TaskBerry you log time per task and see hours per client over a month, so the number is already there when it is time to invoice or report.
Where this goes next
From what they are to how many you have
Once the line is clear, the next question is how many billable hours a week actually holds. For most solo freelancers the answer is 20 to 30, not 40, and planning against the real figure is the whole point.
How many billable hours a week is realisticBillable is only one of three numbers in a freelancer's week. The hours at your desk and the hours you truly focus are the other two, and seeing how they relate is what keeps a week from overflowing.
How many hours a freelancer can really workTo put a number on your own week, run your real working days and non-billable time through the free calculator.
Try the free billable hours calculatorCommon questions
Questions people ask about billable hours
- What counts as a billable hour?
- A billable hour is time a client pays for directly: the focused work on their project, plus the calls and delivery inside the scope you agreed. The rest keeps your business running but never reaches the invoice. Quoting, email, admin, and switching between clients are all real work, but none of it is billable.
- What is the difference between billable and chargeable hours?
- Nothing worth worrying about. Billable, chargeable, and invoiceable all describe the same thing: time a client pays for. Use whichever word your client or your accountant uses. The line that matters is billable versus non-billable, not the name.
- How do you track billable hours?
- Log time against the task you did it for while it is fresh, and note whether it was client work. A timer on each task beats reconstructing your week on Friday afternoon. TaskBerry keeps time per task and totals hours per client over a month, on the free plan.
- Are there downsides to billing by the hour?
- Hourly billing ties what you earn to time spent, so getting faster can lower your invoice, and every non-billable hour is invisible on it. Many freelancers move some work to fixed-price to fix that. Even then, you have to know your billable hours to price a fixed quote without guessing.
- How do I report billable hours to a client?
- A client report is usually hours per project or per task over a period, with a short note on what the time bought. If you have logged time per task, that report is a rollup, not a rewrite. TaskBerry turns logged hours into a per-client report on Pro at €9.95 a month; the tracking underneath it is free.
Plan against your billable hours, not your desk hours
Start free, size a real day, and watch the capacity bar. You will see the gap between the hours you work and the hours you bill in about five minutes.