The Client I Undercharged for Three Years
I thought this client was easy money. Then I finally ran the numbers and found out I had been working for almost nothing.
She paid every invoice within 48 hours. Never complained. Always replied fast. For three years I told myself she was my best client.
Then I actually tracked the time.
The Setup
We had a retainer. $800 a month. I set it up in year one when the work was light, maybe six hours a month. Quick updates, small edits, an occasional call. I felt good about it.
I never revisited the rate. The work crept up gradually, the way it always does. A new feature here, a longer call there, a request that took an afternoon but felt too small to flag. None of it felt like a big deal in the moment.
What I Found When I Actually Looked
I started using Time-Trak properly about four months ago. Not just for new projects. For everything, including this retainer.
At the end of month one, I looked at her project folder. 21 hours.
I ran it again the next month to make sure it wasn't a fluke. 19 hours.
$800 divided by 20 hours is $40 an hour. My actual rate at the time was $110.
I had been losing $70 an hour on my most reliable client for three years.
Why It Happened
The work never felt hard. That was the trap. Easy clients make you soft on the math. When someone is pleasant and pays fast, you stop watching the clock around them. You answer their messages first because it feels good. You hop on quick calls without logging them because it feels rude to start a timer for something that only takes twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes twice a week is three and a half hours a month. That's real money.
I also never looked at the data because I didn't have clean data to look at. I was logging time in a spreadsheet inconsistently. Some weeks I'd forget to log the small stuff entirely. So when I did glance at my hours, they looked reasonable. The spreadsheet wasn't lying. It just wasn't complete.
What Tracking Actually Did
When Time-Trak's floating timer is sitting there, you start it. Not because you're being precious about billing. Because it's there. The friction is low enough that you just do it.
The screenshots helped too. Not for showing the client, but for reminding me. When I reviewed the week and saw a screenshot of her project open at 7pm on a Thursday, I remembered that hour. I had forgotten it by Friday morning.
The Conversation I Had to Have
I told her the retainer needed to change. I showed her the actual hours. I didn't apologize for having tracked them. I just said the scope had grown significantly since we set the original rate and I needed to bring it in line with the work.
She didn't blink. She said she had been wondering when I would bring it up.
That stung a little. She knew. She was just waiting to see if I would notice.
We reset to $1,800 a month. She approved it the same day.
What Three Years Cost
I'm not going to pretend I ran a precise number. But if I averaged 18 hours a month over 36 months at a $70 shortfall per hour, that's somewhere around $45,000 in unbilled work. For one client. Who I thought was my best one.
She still is, actually. But now the math agrees.
What I Do Differently Now
Every retainer gets a monthly hour review. If I'm within 10% of the ceiling, I flag it before the next invoice. I don't wait until it's awkward. I also set a hard cap in the contract so both of us know what we're buying.
None of this is complicated. It just requires you to look at the data instead of going by feel.
Go by feel for long enough and someone else ends up with the money you earned.
Track your time, bill every minute.
Time-Trak is a native Mac and Windows time tracker with a floating timer, automatic screenshots, and one-click invoicing.
Free during beta.
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