How to Use Six Months of Project Data to Build Better Prices

Guessing is what you do before you have data

When you first set your rates, you guessed. Maybe you looked at what others charged. Maybe you took your old salary and divided it by hours. Maybe you just picked a number that felt plausible.

That was fine at the start. But if you have been tracking time for six months, you are not guessing anymore. You have evidence. The question is whether you are using it.

What six months of data actually contains

Six months of logged time across your projects holds a lot of useful signal.

You can see how long different types of work actually take, not how long you thought they would take when you quoted them. That gap between estimate and reality is where most pricing problems live.

You can see which clients take more time per dollar than others. Some clients pay the same rate but generate twice the non-billable overhead through communication volume, revision cycles, and scope questions. That information belongs in your pricing.

You can see which service types have tighter time estimates and which ones always run longer than quoted. That tells you where you need a buffer and where you are already pricing accurately.

You can also see your overall billable ratio, which tells you how much of your working time is actually revenue-generating versus absorbed by overhead.

How to pull the analysis

This does not need to be complicated. You are looking for a few specific numbers.

For each project type you take on, find the average hours you actually logged versus what you quoted. If you quoted 20 hours and averaged 28 across three similar projects, your quote was 40 percent too low. That is not a small error.

For each client, calculate total revenue divided by total hours including non-billable. That is your effective rate per client. Rank them. The ones at the bottom of the list are the ones who need a price increase or a scope conversation.

For your overall business, calculate your total revenue over six months divided by your total logged hours. That is your real effective hourly rate. If it is significantly below your stated rate, you have a leak somewhere.

What the data usually tells you to do

Most people who run this analysis for the first time find two or three things they did not expect.

One service type almost always comes out as the profitability anchor. It takes predictable time, clients do not overuse it, and the billing is clean. That is the service worth growing.

One or two service types come out as profitability drains. They feel like good work, they invoice cleanly, but the hours required make the margin thin. These need a price increase or a scope change before you take them on again.

And there is usually one client who looks like a good account until you see the effective rate. High revenue does not mean high profitability if the time cost is also high.

Building prices from the data

Take your most recent three projects of a similar type. Average the total hours across all of them. Multiply by what you want to earn per hour, not what you have been charging. Add a buffer of 15 to 20 percent for overhead and the unexpected.

That is your new price for that project type.

It is not a guess. It is built from what the work actually costs you to deliver, which means it is defensible. If a client asks how you arrived at the number, you can say it is based on how long this type of work takes based on your records.

Time-Trak keeps all of this data attached to your projects, searchable, filterable, and exportable. The data is there. You just have to look at it before the next proposal goes out, not after it comes back underpaid.

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