--- title: "Billable vs non-billable hours: what to track and why" url: "https://timeretain.com/blog/billable-vs-non-billable-hours" description: "Billable hours go on the invoice. Non-billable hours still shape your rate. Learn the difference, with examples for solo freelancers and consultants." --- # Billable vs non-billable hours: what to track and why August 6, 2026 6 min read By David from [TimeRetain](/) ![Soft 3D clay balance scale weighing peach time cards and small coins against lavender and sage cards, with a peach timer and a potted plant on a cream desk.](/_astro/hero.Chzbh6N4_U9rjF.webp) Billable hours are the hours your client agreed to pay for. Non-billable hours are the rest of your work: real hours that no invoice line covers. You need both numbers. One feeds the invoice. The other shows what your rate must cover. If you track only the first number, you cannot check your rate. Most articles on this topic are written for firms: utilization targets, annual billable goals, manager dashboards. This article is for the person who bills their own work and needs two honest totals. ## What counts as billable An hour is billable when your agreement charges the client for it. Usually that means delivery work: the draft the client bought, a call the contract covers, a revision round inside the agreed scope, or research the deliverable needs. The contract sets the boundary, not how productive the hour felt. A productive hour on a proposal that nobody signed is still non-billable. ## What counts as non-billable Non-billable hours are real work no client pays for directly: * Writing proposals and estimates * Invoicing, bookkeeping, and chasing payments * Marketing, networking, and portfolio updates * Discovery calls with leads who never sign * Learning that no client asked for * Tool setup and admin “Non-billable” does not mean optional. It means the client does not pay for that hour. You still spent it. ## The contract decides One question decides every case: does a signed agreement cover this hour? If the answer is no, the hour is not billable. Estimates, proposals, and unpaid discovery calls are sales work: no contract exists yet. A paid discovery workshop is the exception, and it is a normal thing to sell. The rule holds either way, because a paid workshop has its own agreement. If the answer is yes, the work type stops deciding and the contract type takes over. Drafting the deliverable bills by the hour on an hourly contract. The same drafting sits inside the price on a fixed-fee project or a retainer: paid for, but not a separate invoice line. A revision round follows the same rule. A change request outside the agreed scope is not billable on any contract until you and the client agree on a new price. Once a project closes, check the contract before you call a follow-up a favor. Many agreements keep running for a while after delivery: a support window, a correction period, a promise to fix anything that turns out wrong. Inside that window the work is covered and you do not charge again. Outside it, a “quick question” is either a favor or a small new job, and you decide which. ## Three cases the contract does not settle Some hours are covered on paper and still get written off in practice. **Redoing your own mistakes.** An hourly contract technically pays for the hour you spend fixing something you got wrong. Most freelancers do not bill it, and clients who spot it on an invoice remember. Write it off, but keep the time. Rework you never charged for is still an hour of your week. This is different from a revision the client asked for, which is billable inside the agreed scope. **Getting up to speed.** Research the deliverable needs is billable. Learning a tool, a method, or an industry you did not know yet is contested, even when the job requires it. Clients often refuse it. Agree on this before you start, or price it into your rate. **Travel.** Nothing here is standard. Half rate, a flat fee per trip, and no charge with expenses passed through are all common. Whatever you pick, put it in the agreement, because an hour on a train is an hour of your week either way. ## Why you need both totals The billable total feeds the invoice. The ratio between the two totals feeds your pricing. An example: you invoice 25 hours at $80 this week. That is $2,000. Then count the 15 hours you spent on proposals, invoicing, and unpaid follow-ups. You worked 40 hours for that $2,000. The week paid $50 per hour, not $80. If your costs assume $80 for each working hour, your rate is too low. That $50 is still gross. Self-employment tax, unpaid holidays, sick days, and business costs come out of it. What lands in your account is closer to $30 to $35. Price against that number, not against the one on your invoice. There are four ways to close the gap: charge more, do less unpaid work, stop chasing leads that never convert, and collect what you already billed. That last one is the quiet leak. Hours you worked, logged, and then discounted, wrote off, or never got paid for never show up as non-billable time, so they never show up in your rate math either. Firms track this separately and call it realization. You should at least know the number. Ignore the firm math on utilization. A 70% target is built for a company where someone else does the selling and the invoicing. Most solo freelancers sit between 50% and 60%, and the example above is 62%. The question for a solo worker is smaller: how much of my working week did clients buy, and does my rate cover the rest? ## How TimeRetain tells billable from non-billable In [TimeRetain](https://timeretain.com), every entry carries its own rate. An entry with a rate shows what it earned. An entry with no rate is tracked time, nothing more: it counts in your hours totals, but it earns nothing. You rarely type the rate yourself. Turn on earnings tracking in the preferences, then set your rate per hour on the client timeline once. Each new entry on that timeline copies the rate, and timelines grouped under the client share it too. Agreed on a different price for one job? Type the rate on that entry. It stays until you reset the entry to automatic. Fixed-fee and retainer work needs no rate at all. Give the job its own timeline and let the hours add up. At the end, hold the total against the fee you agreed and you can see for yourself whether the price was fair. That is the number you need when you scope the next one. Keep an **Internal** timeline with no rate for admin, proposals, and marketing. A **Proposals** tag can total your sales work across every client. Tag written-off rework too, so it does not disappear. Overlap never bills twice inside one billing group. If a client entry and a project entry under it cover the same half hour, TimeRetain bills that half hour once, to the more specific timeline. The [capture and cleanup workflow](/blog/how-to-track-billable-hours) is the same for both kinds of time. Only the rate differs. One thing to settle before you invoice: your billing increment. Some clients expect fifteen-minute blocks, some expect actual minutes. Track the real time either way and round at export, not at capture. Rounding early loses the number you need for your rate math. When you invoice, filter the period by timeline and export the CSV. Billable hours feed the invoice. Non-billable hours tell you if next month’s rate still works. The client gets the first number. The second one is yours. ![TimeRetain](/favicon.svg) See hours and earnings per client, with records that stay on your device. Export a clean summary when you invoice. [Start tracking →](/) ## Questions and Answers ### What is the difference between billable and non-billable hours? Billable hours are work a client pays for. Non-billable hours are real work that no client pays for, such as proposals, invoicing, marketing, or unpaid follow-ups. Both belong in your time record. ### Should I track non-billable hours? Yes. Without them you cannot see what share of your working week clients actually buy, or what you really earn per working hour. ### Are non-billable hours unpaid? For a solo freelancer or consultant, usually yes: no client pays for them directly. Your rate still has to cover them, because they come out of the same working week as the hours you invoice. ### Is retainer time billable or non-billable? Paid, but not a new invoice line. The client already bought that time. It is not free work, so do not file it with your admin hours. Keep it on its own timeline, and the hours total tells you what the month cost you. ### Are fixed-fee project hours billable? Paid, but not a separate invoice line, because the fee is fixed. Track them anyway: the hours total against the fee shows whether the price was fair and how to scope the next one. ### Do I bill for redoing work I got wrong? Usually not, even on an hourly contract that technically covers the hour. Most freelancers write off rework caused by their own mistake. Track the time anyway, so you can see what those mistakes cost you. ### Is travel time billable? Only if you agreed on it in writing. Common arrangements are half rate, a flat fee per trip, or no charge with expenses passed through. Nothing here is standard, so settle it before the first trip. ### What is a good utilization rate for a freelancer? Most solo freelancers land somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of their working week. Firm targets of 70 percent or higher assume employees with someone else doing the sales and admin.