← Freelance retainer calculator
This calculator vs. Harvest
Different jobs: one prices a retainer before the work starts, the other tracks and invoices the hours after it does.
Harvest is a well-known paid time-tracking and invoicing subscription, described on getharvest.com. It logs billable hours with start/stop timers, manual entries, idle-time detection, and offline tracking; records expenses with attached receipts; generates invoices that pull in the logged time and billable expenses automatically, with online payment through Stripe or PayPal; and reports on billable hours, utilization, and project profitability. It is the kind of tool a freelancer reaches for once a retainer is already priced and the work has started, to track the hours against it and bill for them.
That is a different job from the one this page does. This calculator has no timer, no logged hours, no invoice, and no account. It exists for the narrower task that comes before any of that: turning your income goal, real billable capacity, operating costs, and scope buffer into a defensible retainer price — and checking that price still covers your hourly floor at light use, full use, and overage, with nothing to sign up for.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| What should I charge for this retainer, given my costs, capacity, and income goal? | This calculator — it prices the block from your own numbers and checks the price against your hourly floor at 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125% usage. |
| How do I log the hours I actually work against this retainer and invoice the client for them? | Harvest or a comparable paid tool — timers, logged time, and generated invoices are jobs this page does not attempt. |
| Does an unused-hour rollover clause or Net 30 still leave me able to float the month? | This calculator — the rollover and payment-terms pages model exactly that, with no account and nothing uploaded. |
| Do I need a running timer, expense receipts, or profitability reports across several ongoing clients? | Harvest or a comparable paid tool — this page remembers nothing about your clients between visits except what your own browser stores locally. |
This calculator is deliberately the opposite shape from a subscription platform: nothing to sign up for, nothing billed monthly, and nothing typed here ever leaves your browser. That makes it useful for pricing one retainer honestly before you open a timer — and the wrong tool for logging hours, recording expenses, or generating the invoice for work already underway, which is exactly the job a paid tool like Harvest is built for.
It needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off. Harvest's own pricing changed structure in 2026 and is not restated here for that reason: no dollar figure for it appears on this page, only its well-documented category and feature set.
Common questions
Should I use this calculator or a paid tool like Harvest?
They answer different questions, and most freelancers who run retainers end up wanting both. Harvest is a paid time-tracking and invoicing subscription, described on its own site: start/stop timers or manual entries logged against a project, expenses recorded with receipts, invoices generated from the logged time and billable expenses with online payment through Stripe or PayPal, and reports on billable hours and project profitability. All of that happens after you already have a price and are delivering the work. This calculator answers the question that comes before any of it: from your income goal, real billable capacity, operating costs, and a scope buffer, what should the retainer price actually be, and does it still cover your hourly floor at light, full, and heavy usage. Once you have that number, Harvest (or a comparable tool) is where you might log the hours and send the invoice against it.
Is this page affiliated with Harvest?
No. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Harvest. Harvest is named here only to describe what this calculator is and is not.
Open the retainer calculator to price your own plan, then check it against real usage and payment terms.