Enter the numbers, drag the scope-creep slider, see the margin. No signup, no email, works instantly.
What the team actually costs you per hour — salary plus employer NI, pension and a share of overhead, not just billing rate.
67%
margin — £10,000 on a £15,000 fee
A 67% margin is a healthy result for most agencies (target is 30–50%).
Cost so far
£5,000
Breaks even at
+200% scope
Margin here is revenue minus true delivery cost — not billing rate, but what the work actually costs the firm. Cost rate should include salary plus employer National Insurance, pension contributions and a proportional share of overhead, not just a headline day rate.
The scope-creep slider models the most common way healthy-looking projects quietly become loss-making: hours drift upward — a phase runs long, a piece of scope creeps in without a change request — while the fee stays fixed. The "breaks even at" figure shows exactly how much scope creep this specific project can absorb before it stops making money.
30–50% margin is a reasonable target for most UK agencies and consultancies. Below 20%, delivery costs are eating most of the project's revenue.
This calculator is a one-off snapshot. Hourglass tracks real margin, budget burn and scope drift automatically as time is logged — across your whole portfolio, not just one project at a time.