Rex says
Money math without the spreadsheet headache. Plug in your numbers and I'll show you exactly where the dollars land.
Try a scenario
Click to load — tweak from there.Inputs
Subcontractors, stock, ad spend you fronted
Discovery, proposal, pitch
Result
True effective hourly rate
$95
Rate if you only counted delivery
$147
All-in hours
96.0
Hours outside delivery
34.0
Fee after pass-throughs
$9,100
Psst — share this and help Rex grow
One click, a permanent link with your numbers baked in.
Got your number — what next?
Pick one, it takes 20 secondsHow to use this
- 1Enter project fee ($).
- 2Enter pass-through costs ($) — Subcontractors, stock, ad spend you fronted.
- 3Enter delivery hours (hrs).
- 4Enter pre-sales hours (hrs) — Discovery, proposal, pitch.
- 5Enter revision hours (hrs).
- 6Enter admin & invoicing hours (hrs).
- 7Read your true effective hourly rate on the right — it updates as you type.
- 8Hit Share to keep the scenario or send it to someone.
About this calculator
The rate on your proposal is fiction until you count the unpaid hours around the work: the pitch, the scoping calls, the revisions, the invoicing chase. This calculator takes the fee, subtracts pass-through costs, then divides by all in hours — delivery plus pre-sales plus admin — to show what you genuinely earned per hour on the engagement. Freelancers and small agencies routinely discover a $10,000 project that felt like a $150/hr win actually paid $78/hr once the 14 hours of proposal work and 9 hours of admin were counted. Running this on your last five projects usually reveals the client type worth repeating and the one worth firing.
Worked example
Using the values the calculator loads with:
Inputs
- Project fee: 10000 $
- Pass-through costs: 900 $
- Delivery hours: 62 hrs
- Pre-sales hours: 14 hrs
- Revision hours: 11 hrs
- Admin & invoicing hours: 9 hrs
Results
- True effective hourly rate: $94.79
- Rate if you only counted delivery: $146.77
- All-in hours: 96
- Hours outside delivery: 34
- Fee after pass-throughs: $9,100.00
What each field means
Inputs
- Project fee ($)
- The project fee used in the calculation, measured in $. Starts at 10000 $ so you have a working example on load.
- Pass-through costs ($)
- Subcontractors, stock, ad spend you fronted
- Delivery hours (hrs)
- The delivery hours used in the calculation, measured in hrs. Starts at 62 hrs so you have a working example on load.
- Pre-sales hours (hrs)
- Discovery, proposal, pitch
- Revision hours (hrs)
- The revision hours used in the calculation, measured in hrs. Starts at 11 hrs so you have a working example on load.
- Admin & invoicing hours (hrs)
- The admin & invoicing hours used in the calculation, measured in hrs. Starts at 9 hrs so you have a working example on load.
Results
- True effective hourly rate
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars and shown as the headline result. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Rate if you only counted delivery
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- All-in hours
- Returned as a whole number. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Hours outside delivery
- Returned as a whole number. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
- Fee after pass-throughs
- Returned as a money amount in US dollars. It recalculates instantly whenever you change an input, so you can compare scenarios without reloading.
FAQ
Should pre-sales hours for lost pitches count too?
Not on a single project, but you should allocate them across won work at the portfolio level. If you spend 100 hours a year pitching and win a third of it, add roughly a third of those hours to each won engagement to see the honest number.
Why subtract pass-through costs from the fee?
Because money that flows through you to a subcontractor or ad platform is not revenue you earned — including it inflates your rate and hides that you're doing unpaid procurement work. If you mark pass-throughs up, count only the markup.
What effective rate should a freelancer target?
Work backwards from income: desired annual income plus taxes and overhead, divided by realistically billable hours (usually 1,000-1,300 for a solo operator, not 2,000). A $120k target income commonly implies a $150-190 effective rate, well above what most people quote.
Is a low effective rate always bad?
No — a strategic first project with a reference-grade logo, or a deliberately cheap pilot that opens a retainer, can be worth it. It only becomes a problem when you can't tell the difference because you never measured.
Accuracy and limitations
- Results are estimates before tax, fees, and inflation unless an input explicitly covers them.
- Rates are treated as fixed for the whole period — variable-rate products will drift from this projection.
- This is educational maths, not financial advice. Check anything contractual with the lender or your accountant.
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Cite this calculator
Writing about this topic? Grab a citation — every link helps keep these tools free.
RevenueLab. (2026). Project Effective Hourly Rate Calculator. Retrieved from https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/agency-effective-hourly
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/agency-effective-hourly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Project Effective Hourly Rate Calculator — RevenueLab</a> (2026).</p>
Source: [Project Effective Hourly Rate Calculator — RevenueLab](https://www.revenuelab.fyi/toolbox/agency-effective-hourly) (2026).