How Freelance Designers Should Price Revision Rounds
Include two revision rounds in a design fee, never three and never unlimited. Define what a round is in writing, and quote every extra round as its own fixed-price line before you start it.
Read →The end of the unbilled hour.
If it's on the board, it's on the invoice.
In Aeto, you track time on the task itself. When you build an invoice, those tasks are already there as line items, with the hours attached. You review it and you're done, with nothing to copy out of a spreadsheet and no week to rebuild from memory.
30-day free trialNo credit card requiredMac · Web · Chrome
Originally built by a working creative director to bill his own clients.
Visual preview of the Aeto app showing a Kanban task board with active clients, a running timer, and task detail panel.
Freelancers lose money between apps.
When your tasks live in one tool, your time in another, and your invoice in a spreadsheet, every handoff is a chance to drop an hour. It goes missing in small pieces you don't notice until you add them up.
01 · Research
The session you forgot to log.
Two hours in a Figma file before you remembered the timer.
About $280 at $140 an hour
02 · Revisions
The round you squeezed in.
You made the edits and sent them back between other things. The timer was never on.
About $186
03 · Calls
The call that ran long.
You meant to write it down afterward. It never made it to the invoice.
About $105
04 · Friday
Rebuilding the week from memory.
You open your calendar and your inbox and try to piece together what you did, then round down to be safe.
THE FIX
Aeto keeps those steps in one place, so the time you track is the time you bill.
From first task to final invoice.
Each step builds on the one before it. The task you add on Monday becomes a line item on your invoice at the end of the month.
Step
01
Put the work on the board.
Add a client, create a project, and break the work into tasks. Set each project to hourly or flat fee.
Step
02
Track time on the task.
Start the timer from the task, from your Mac menu bar, or from the Chrome toolbar. The time attaches to that task, so there's nothing to sort out later. If you want, turn on the setting that starts the timer when you drag a task into In Progress.
Step
03
Build the invoice from tracked time.
Choose the client, and Aeto lists their finished, unbilled tasks as line items, even across several projects. Review the lines, adjust anything you need to, and download the invoice as a PDF. Aeto doesn't email invoices for you, so you send it the way you already do.
Step
04
Mark it paid.
Record payments as they come in and see what's still outstanding across every client.
The timer you'll actually use.
In your Mac menu bar and your Chrome toolbar.
On a Mac, the Aeto timer sits in your menu bar, one click away from whatever you're working in. In Chrome, the extension puts the same timer in your toolbar.
It doesn't need to connect to Figma, GitHub, or anything else you use. It runs alongside them and logs the time to a task on your board.
What Aeto does, and what it doesn't.
Aeto covers the stretch between agreeing to a project and getting paid for it. It doesn't do proposals, contracts, expenses, or accounting, and it isn't built for teams. If you need those, keep the tool you use for them. Aeto will fit next to it.
Projects and tasks
Plan the work on a Kanban board or a list, with due dates on each task.
Time tracking
Track time on individual tasks from the app or your menu bar. Every entry belongs to a task and a project.
Invoicing
Turn tracked time into invoice line items, then download a PDF. One invoice can cover several projects for the same client.
Payments
Record payments and see every unpaid invoice, across all your clients, in one list.
Calendar view
Projects, tasks, and deadlines on one calendar. Plan the week without switching apps.
Reports
See finished work you haven't invoiced yet and income across every client. The dashboard shows where your business stands when you open the app.
Know what your projects are really worth.
A $3,000 project that takes 20 hours pays $150 an hour. If it takes 40, you made $75. Aeto shows your effective hourly rate on flat-fee projects so you can price the next one better.
One calendar for your work and your money.
See when tasks are due, when payments are expected, and which invoices are overdue. Aeto keeps your project deadlines and payment dates together.
Practical guides for freelancers.
How to track your time, write invoices that get paid, and build the billing habits that compound over a career.
How to Raise Your Rates With Existing Clients (Without Asking Permission)
Most freelancers raise rates with a question and get talked down. Send a notice instead, with a new number and a date, 60 to 90 days out. If no client pushes back, the increase was too small.
Read →Tracking Billable Time From Your Browser: What a Chrome Timer Should Do
The best Chrome extension for billable time is the one that puts every session on a client task that ends up on an invoice. How Toggl Track, Clockify, Harvest and Aeto compare, and where each one falls short.
Read →Whatever you make, every hour should pay.
Aeto is for independent professionals who do the work and send the invoice themselves, without a team or a bookkeeper in between.
Freelance Designers
Design the work. Bill every phase of it.
Revisions, client calls, and presentation prep are all billable. Track each one on its task and it shows up when you invoice.
Freelance Developers
Ship the code. Bill every ticket.
Give each project its own rate, track time against each piece of work, and invoice each client separately.
Copywriters & Strategists
The writing is the easy part. Billing for it is the hard part.
Research and revision rounds get their own tasks and their own time, so your invoice shows what the project really took.
Consultants
Your time is the product. Bill for all of it.
Prep time and follow-up are the hours consultants most often forget to bill. Put them on the board and they make it onto the invoice.
Built to keep getting better.
Aeto is built and maintained by Ebrius LLC. We've shipped more than 25 releases since version 1.0 launched in April 2026, and every change is listed in the release notes. Most of those updates come from what customers tell us is slowing them down.
Aeto's founder, Jim MacLeod, has spent 25 years in design, creative direction, and web development, and still runs client work through Aeto every week. Email [email protected] and you'll hear back from the people who build it.
Things you can check
- The Mac app is signed and notarized by Apple.
- The Chrome extension is published on the Chrome Web Store under Ebrius LLC.
- Every update is listed in the release notes.
- Jim wrote The Visual Marketer, a #1 Amazon bestseller in Design and Graphic Arts.
One plan with everything in it.
Everything Aeto does. $10 a month.
$10 a month, or $100 a year (two months free). Unlimited clients, projects, and invoices on Mac, web, and Chrome.
Everything plan
Free for 30 days
$10/mo
or $100/yr, 2 months free
Unlimited clients and projects
Task-level time tracking and the menu bar timer
Invoices built from tracked time
Payments and outstanding balances
Kanban board, list, and calendar
Dashboard and reports
No credit card for the trialCancel anytimeMac · Web · Chrome
Your work is done.
Make sure you're paid for all of it.
Try Aeto free for 30 days on Mac, the web, or Chrome. No credit card. Use it through your next invoice and see how much you would have missed.
Answers to the questions we get most.
Everything you're likely to ask before you start the trial.
Q.01What does Aeto do?
Aeto combines freelance project management, task-level time tracking, and professional invoicing in a single application, available as a Mac desktop app, a web app, and a Chrome Extension. It connects those three functions so tracked time flows directly into invoices without any manual data entry.
Q.02How much does Aeto cost?
Aeto costs $10 per month. The annual plan is $100 a year (two months free), and no credit card is required to start the 30-day free trial.
Q.03Does Aeto work on Mac only?
No. Aeto runs on Mac (native desktop app, Apple Silicon, macOS 12+), in any browser via the web app at app.aeto.app, and in Chrome via the Aeto Chrome Extension. The Mac app adds a persistent menu bar timer; the Chrome Extension adds a one-click timer in your browser toolbar. The web app works everywhere else.
Q.04Does Aeto replace my project management and invoicing tools?
For freelancers who need project management, time tracking, and invoicing, Aeto is designed to replace all three. It is not built for teams or enterprise project management at this time.
Q.05Is there a free trial?
Yes. Aeto includes a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. After the trial, a subscription of $10 per month is required to continue.
Q.06How automated is it?
Your tracked time becomes invoice line items without retyping anything. You can also turn on a setting that starts the timer when you drag a task from To Do to In Progress.
Q.07Can I run multiple timers at the same time?
No. One timer runs at a time, on the task you're working on, which keeps your hours from double-counting.
Q.08Can I see all outstanding invoices across every client in one place?
Yes. The Aeto payments ledger shows every invoice across all clients with its current status: paid, partially paid, or overdue.
Q.09What does the Aeto dashboard show?
The dashboard shows your key business numbers at a glance: unbilled amount for the current month, total outstanding invoices, amount collected to date, active projects, recent time entries, and upcoming deadlines.
Q.10Can Aeto send invoices to my clients?
Not directly. Aeto builds the invoice from your tracked time, and you download it as a PDF and send it the way you already do.
Q.11What happens to my data if I cancel?
You can export your data as a CSV anytime. If you've paid for Aeto, your data stays in your account after your subscription ends. If you delete your account from Settings, Aeto deletes your data right away.
Q.12Who makes Aeto?
Ebrius LLC. Aeto's founder, Jim MacLeod, has 25 years in design, creative direction, and web development and runs his own client work through Aeto. Questions go to [email protected], and you'll hear back from the people who build it.
Q.13Is Aeto going to be around in a year?
Yes. Ebrius LLC builds and maintains Aeto, and new features are added all the time: more than 25 releases since version 1.0 launched in April 2026, all listed in the release notes. If you ever decide to leave, you can export your data as a CSV anytime, and if you've paid for Aeto, your data stays in your account even after a subscription ends.