Billable Hours Required Calculator
Find how much productive or billable time fits within a workday or shift at your productivity target. The result rounds up to the next whole minute so it does not understate the time needed.
Calculate required productive time
This calculator treats the duration you enter as the workday or shift denominator. It does not decide whether a lunch or other break is paid. If an unpaid lunch sits outside your worked denominator and you also need an end time, use the productivity calculator with lunch break.
How the required-hours calculation works
Total workday minutes = hours × 60 + additional minutes
Required productive minutes = ceiling(total workday minutes × (productivity target ÷ 100))
Non-billable allowance = total workday minutes − required productive minutes
For an 8-hour day at an 85% target, the calculator uses 480 total minutes, requires 408 productive or billable minutes (6 hours 48 minutes), and leaves 72 minutes (1 hour 12 minutes) for non-billable work within that denominator.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the billable hours required for a target?
Convert the workday or shift to minutes, multiply by the productivity target, and round up to a whole minute. An 8-hour day at 85% requires 408 productive minutes.
Why does the calculator round up?
Rounding up prevents a fractional-minute result from understating the productive time needed to meet the target.
Does the workday duration include lunch?
Use the denominator that matches your workplace productivity policy. If unpaid lunch is outside worked time, keep it out of this duration and use the lunch-break calculator for the clock end time.
What happens at a 100% productivity target?
The required productive time equals the full duration entered, leaving no non-billable allowance.