Free Invoice Generator

Kill fee calculator

A client has cancelled part-way through. Enter the fee, how far the work got and the kill fee in your contract, and the sheet works out what to invoice, less anything already paid.

The project

Used to name the lines on the invoice.

The cancellation

Either the finished work is paid in full and the kill fee is a share of what was not done, or the kill fee is a share of the whole fee in place of paying for the work. Check the cancellation clause: the two give very different figures.

How much of the agreed work was finished when the client cancelled.

The percentage in your contract.

Costs already spent for the project, at what you paid.

A deposit or earlier invoices the client has paid.

GuideDeposits and progress billingHow this works, and where the figures go wrong →

How the kill fee calculator works

A kill fee is what a client agrees to pay if they cancel a project before it is finished. It pays you for the time you set aside and the work you turned down, as well as the work you did. The figure is whatever your contract says, and contracts write it one of two ways.

  • Work done, plus a percentage of the rest. The finished part is paid in full, and the kill fee is a share of the part never done. On a 5,000 project cancelled 40% of the way through with a 50% kill fee, that is 2,000 for the work and 1,500 (half of the 3,000 left), so 3,500.
  • A percentage of the whole fee. The kill fee replaces payment for the work done: 25% of 5,000 is 1,250, however far the work got. Common in publishing, where an article that is never run is paid a fixed share.

Expenses you have already spent are added in either case, and anything the client has already paid comes off the end, so the figure at the top is what the new invoice asks for.

What the kill fee calculator does not do

  • It does not tell you what percentage to charge. There is no official or standard kill fee. If your contract has no cancellation clause, what you can claim depends on the law where you work and on what was agreed, and that is a question for a lawyer, not a calculator.
  • It does not decide how much work was done. "40% done" is your estimate; a client may see it differently. Milestones or hours logged make it easier to show.
  • It does not add tax. If you charge VAT, GST or sales tax, add it in the invoice generator, where the rate is yours to set.
  • It does not keep anything. Nothing is written to your browser's storage and nothing you type is sent to us.

Related

To avoid needing this, the guide to deposits and progress billing covers taking money before the end. The payment terms generator writes terms and a contract clause, and if the client disputes the invoice, the invoice dispute response generator writes the reply.

Last updated 5 October 2026