Hourly Legal Cost Calculator — Time Entries
Price legal time entries from minutes and rates, with exact elapsed billing or an entered increment rounded separately for each task.
Calculate professional time charges from individual tasks, elapsed minutes and hourly rates. Choose exact elapsed billing or round each entry up to an increment from your agreement. The table keeps actual time, billed time and charges separate so the effect of that convention is visible.
How to use this tool
- Enter each task as Task | Elapsed minutes | Hourly rate.
- Keep separately billed tasks on separate rows.
- Choose exact time or an agreed whole-minute increment.
- Review the extra billed minutes and total professional time cost.
Formula
Exact charge = minutes × hourly rate / 60; increment charge = ceiling(minutes / increment) × increment × hourly rate / 60
Rounding applies independently to each row. A zero-minute entry remains zero. The increment is a whole number from 1 to 60 minutes; elapsed minutes may contain decimals. All rates use the selected currency, and up to 100 nonblank entries are supported.
Example
Research taking 30 minutes at 200 per hour costs 100. Drafting taking 45 minutes at 300 per hour rounds to 48 minutes with a six-minute increment, costing 240. The total is 340, compared with 325 using exact elapsed time.
Frequently asked questions
Why not add all minutes before rounding?
The selected model treats each row as an independently billed entry. Two three-minute entries rounded to six minutes each total twelve billed minutes. Combining them first would represent a different billing convention.
Does entering an increment establish that it is allowed?
No. Use the agreement and applicable rules to determine the permitted billing practice. The calculator applies your supplied convention and does not assess fee reasonableness.
Are travel, expenses and tax included?
Only time entered as billable tasks is priced. Other amounts need their own agreement and calculation. The total uses full row fractions before display rounding, so adding rounded row displays can produce a small difference.
Sources
This tool gives an estimate for general information only. It is not financial, tax, legal or medical advice — check with a qualified professional before you rely on the result.
Last updated: 2026